DIVIDENDS IN COOPERATIVE GRAIN COMPANIES. 7 



in book form becomes too cumbersome to be economicallj^ feasible 

 for daily use under these more complex conditions. 



In the county plan several elevators are grouped together into a 

 single unit, with the control centering in a general office supervised 

 by a general manager. As any system of accounts devised for this 

 type of organization should aim to minimize the work of each local 

 manager, all' accounting, except such as is required for the recording 

 of sales of merchandise to local patrons, is recorded in the central 

 office. In this case a system of grain-purchase tickets will take the 

 place of the patronage ledger. Each station manager will record 

 upon a suitable ticket all the grain received from a certain patron 

 during a business day. At the end of the day these tickets will be 

 forwarded to the central office, together with the report of all the 

 business transactions of the daj. At the central office these grain- 

 purchase tickets should be alphabetized by the names of the patrons. 

 If the grain has been received and not paid for, such tickets are filed 

 according to number in another compartment of the filing drawer, to 

 be removed to the alphabetical file upon notice that the grain has been 

 purchased. By this method of filing it becomes possible, through the 

 use of an adding machine, to arrive at the business transacted with 

 each of the patrons during anj period by simply adding together the 

 totals of the tickets registered under each name. In the case of sales 

 of merchandise, a similar filing system should be used, each of the 

 patron's purchases being filed under his name. At the end of the 

 year the bookkeeper would be able to record on his patronage ledger, 

 under the name of each patron, the total transactions of both kinds of 

 business occurring during the year. It has been customary under 

 the county-unit plan to keep the business of each elevator separate 

 and apart from that of any other belonging to the group. For this 

 reason the profit derived from the business of each of these elevators 

 also can be determined. 



Although it is usual to consider the profits of the organization as 

 a whole when distributing patronage dividends under this arrange- 

 ment,, a condition sometimes has arisen which has been the subject 

 of considerable discussion. By keeping each elevator's business en- 

 tirely separate, in some instances the patrons of the different elevators 

 have been paid their pro rata share of the profits of the elevator with 

 which they did business. In some cases different elevators operating 

 at a less relative cost per bushel have been able to pay a higher per 

 bushel dividend than others in the same group. The following ques- 

 tion has then arisen : Inasmuch as each patron is contributing to the 

 prosperity of the county organization on a per bushel basis, from 

 which it is assumed the same margin of profit has been taken, would 

 it not be more equitable if the gross profits of the organization were 

 pooled, the entire expenses deducted, and each patron paid his equal 



