THE POULTRY PRODUCING COMMUNITY 
A few years ago a Government poultry expert paid a visit to 
Petaluma. He came back and reported, “It is a great dis- 
appointment, the methods are very crude.” The case is most 
pathetic. Here was a man employed by the people to teach 
them how to make poultry pay. His carfare is paid across the 
continent that he might visit the only community in the Unit- 
ed States where at that time any considerable number of 
people were making their living from poultry, and because he 
did not find lightning rods on the poultry houses, he came 
back with the look of Naamen who, when he was requested by 
Elisha to bathe seven times in the river Jordan, replied, “It is 
very crude.” 
Will Co-operation Work? 
That magic thing, “Co-operation,” while utterly lacking in 
the Utopian qualities with which the word artist paints it, is 
a decidedly bigger factor in American affairs than the average 
man realizes. 
The chief difficulty with co-operation is that the manager, 
if not incompetent, has an excellent opportunity to be a grafter. 
In Europe co-operation in agricultural and mercantile enter- 
prise is older and better developed than in this country. Per- 
haps the Europeans are less inclined to be grafters, but a more 
likely explanation is that the members of such associations as 
these have learned how to prevent and detect graft, just as 
our business men have learned to avoid losses from the dis- 
honesty of employes. That this is the true explanation is sub- 
stantiated by the fact that when co-operation once becomes 
established in this country, it succeeds even better than in 
Europe. 
When the creameries were started in the West several 
years ago, there was much complaint of swindlers, fake stock 
companies, and co-operative ventures in which the manager 
absconded with the butter money. To-day more than half of 
the American creameries are co-operative and the number is 
constantly increasing. They are efficient and successful in 
every way, and to-day make the finest of butter and pay the 
highest prices to the farmer for his cream. But their way 
was first paved and the business developed by successful 
private concerns. 
Co-operation is entirely feasible and successful where the 
people behind the movement have enough interest in the 
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