36 BULLETIN 547, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



activities of these organizations are restricted largely to the handling 

 of tobacco. Only two reported the handling of any other product; 

 one reported fertilizers and the other miscellaneous products. 



LIVE STOCK ASSOCIATIONS. 



Farmers' associations for the marketing of live stock are of recent 

 origin, most of them having developed during the last few years. 

 The form of organization is more or less informal. As most of them 

 do not own any property or need any great amount of capital, they 

 are frequently not incorporated under the State laws. On this 

 account there are undoubtedly a number of live-stock shipping 

 associations of which the names have not been reported, and also 

 a large number that have failed to reply to the request for informa- 

 tion. In all, 96 of this class reported; 30 are in Minnesota, 25 in 

 Nebraska, 20 in Iowa, and the remaining 21 are distributed among 

 11 States. 



The method commonly used by these organizations is to ship 

 the stock and, after the returns of the sale are received, to make 

 deductions to cover the necessary expenses, including the manager's 

 commission, and to pay the remainder to the farmers. It is therefore 

 not strange that 64 of the associations reported the cooperative form 

 of organization and that only 17 followed the stock company method 

 of doing business. 



The average volume of business reported is $98,777, or a total of 

 $9,482,592 for the 96 associations. The average number of members 

 is 140, or a total of 13,440 members. 



Side lines are handled by 35 of these live stock associations. Fuel 

 is reported by 9, lumber by 5, merchandise by 1, produce by 1, 

 cream by 1, and miscellaneous products and supplies by 18. 



MISCELLANEOUS ORGANIZATIONS. 



Of the organizations reporting, 581 were classed as miscellaneous. 

 (See Table I.) Some of these handle only one product, while others 

 market a variety of products. When only a few associations were 

 handling a certain product, they were placed in the miscellaneous 

 class, as were the organizations whose kind of business could not be 

 ascertained accurately. The geographical distribution of the mis- 

 cellaneous organizations is fairly uniform, 47 of the States being 

 represented. The leading States in point of number are Ne- 

 braska 46, Kansas 39, Maine 39, California 34, Iowa 31, North Caro- 

 lina 28, Washington 28, Minnesota 27, Idaho 26, and Illinois 24. 



The miscellaneous organizations show a larger number reporting 

 the cooperative plan than the stock plan, there being 313 of the 

 former and 219 of the latter. The average annual volume of business 



