20 BULLETIN 937, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



COMPARISONS AND CONCLUSIONS. 



One can not carry his investigations of cooperative grain market- 

 ing far without realizing that what may be an excellent method for 

 some sections and for some conditions will not always work out suc- 

 cessfully in other sections or when applied to other conditions. One 

 hears altogether too much of plans and systems and not enough of 

 analysis of existing conditions. The farmers' elevators of the Middle 

 West are endeavoring to coordinate their activities and to extend 

 their operations to terminal marketing, but it is doubtful if there 

 will be adopted either a Canadian plan or a plan which has been dis- 

 covered in some other section. The extension of their activities will 

 necessarily be a development along lines that have a special fitness 

 for their own peculiar needs and requirements. 



The Canadian system of line-house operation of farmers' eleva- 

 tors would seem to offer greatest advantage in those States where 

 crops are somewhat uncertain or where the crop year is of short 

 duration, some elevators being closed for certain periods each year, 

 and under which conditions it is difficult to secure the type of 

 manager which is necessary if the local company shall market on 

 its own initiative and responsibility. Most managers who are com- 

 petent to fill an executive position do not care to take a position in a 

 section of the country where short crops may require that they seek 

 other employment during the periods when it is necessary to close 

 the elevator. On the other hand, the type of man who is capable 

 of assuming responsibility and who has the ability to manage a 

 business in all its details will not be satisfied to hold a position where 

 all of the executive and administrative matters are handled from a 

 central office. Of course, there are exceptions. 



On the whole, the local agents of the line-house type of farmers' 

 elevators are of exceptionally high grade, but necessarily they are of 

 a different type from the men who are managing the more successful 

 single-unit type of farmers' elevators in Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and 

 other Middle Western States. 



Another point of difference that needs to be considered is that in 

 Canada the city of Winnipeg is the natural gateway through which 

 passes each year a very large proportion of all the marketed grain 

 of western Canada. It is quite natural for terminal marketing 

 activities to center there. In the United States, on the other hand, 

 are several large terminal markets, among which there is a constant 

 shift of the grain movement from several States. 



A central control over the farmers' elevators located in western 

 Iowa, for example, might, during a single year, be logically situated 

 in several different markets. While this condition might be over- 

 come to some extent by the establishment of agencies in each of the 



