6 BULLETIN oil, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



another and form an effective means of promoting the interests of 

 the farmers' companies. A number of the State associations have 

 formed the National Council of Farmers' Cooperative Associations. 

 This organization is the representative of the fanners' elevator 

 companies in matters of interstate and national importance. 



One unfortunate feature of the organization of the farmers' elevator 

 companies is that so many of them fail to live up to cooperative 

 principles. At first the organization of a farmers' elevator was 

 considered a hazardous undertaking and it was asserted that the 

 people who put money into such an undertaking ought to receive 

 its profits in accordance with the amount of their investment. Now 

 that the farmers' elevators are well established, all such organiza- 

 tions that are not cooperative should, wherever possible, adopt the 

 cooperative plan of organization. Some elevators were organized 

 with the assistance of local business men who subscribed for shares 

 of stock, and many of them have experienced difficulty in reorgan- 

 izing, because the members who are not farmers oppose such a 

 move, as it would reduce the size of their dividends. Some of the 

 farmer members also make this objection. These members shoidd 

 be made to see that the profit has been produced by the handling of 

 the grain and should be distributed accordingly, allowing the stock- 

 holders only a fail* rate of interest on their investment, if their 

 organization is to be truly cooperative. 



CREAMERIES AND CHEESE FACTORIES. 



There are approximately 5,500 creameries and 3,500 cheese fac- 

 tories in the United States at the present time. The greater number 

 are located in the territory east of the western boundary of Minnesota 

 and Iowa. The organization of factories for making cheese dates 

 from about the middle of the last century; creameries for the 

 manufacture of butter were started a few years later. The early 

 factories were usually cooperative in form. A number of cooperative 

 creameries were established in New England, in New York, and the 

 surrounding States. Creameries and cheese factories were not 

 established in the North Central States until later, when the country 

 became settled and there was a general change from a system of 

 grain farming to that of diversified crop production. The first 

 cooperative creamery in Minnesota was established in 1889. At the 

 present time there are over 600 enterprises of this kind in that State. 



The cooperative creamery has not encountered as well-organized 

 opposition as that which the farmers' elevators have met. At first 

 all creameries were local in character so that competition came 

 principally from privately owned local plants. Since the advent of 

 the hand "separator large centralizing plants which receive shipments 

 of cream from an extensive territory have been established. In 



