34 



CIECULAE 10 0, XT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



since 1922. Their membership in Virginia was never very large, 

 exclusive of the membership of the Tobacco Growers' Cooperative 

 Association (J, p. 9). Few of these cooperative associations exist 

 in the purely tobacco districts. No satisfactory data in regard to 

 farmers' organizations are available for North Carolina and South 

 Carolina, but apparently conditions are much the same in these 

 States as in Virginia. 



In the membership survey made in connection with this study it 

 was found that 67 per cent of the interviewed members had never 

 belonged to any cooperative-marketing association except the 

 Tobacco Growers' Cooperative Association. About 13 per cent had 

 belonged to such social and educational societies as the Farmers' 

 Union, Farmers' Alliance, the Grange, and the Farm Bureau. Of 

 those who had belonged to cooperative-marketing associations, other 

 than the tobacco cooperative, 85 per cent had belonged to the North 

 Carolina and South Carolina cotton cooperatives — which were not 

 formed until 1922. Outside of the cotton and tobacco associations 

 only 4.8 per cent of the producers questioned had belonged to coop- 

 eratives. This would mean that prior to 1922 at least 95 per cent 

 of these men had belonged to no cooperative-marketing association 

 and had no cooperative-marketing experience. Many of the farmers 

 had joined the cotton and tobacco associations at the same time, and 

 few had had previous experience in the marketing of their products 

 cooperatively. Only 9 of the 643 members had belonged to two other 

 cooperative associations. Table 7 shows, by pools, the number of 

 other associations to which the members of the Tri-State Tobacco 

 Growers' Association had belonged prior to 1928. It is obvious that 

 prior to the formation of the Tobacco Growers' Cooperative Asso- 

 ciation the growers were almost totally lacking in cooperative busi- 

 ness experience, and this lack seriously hindered the first attempts. 



Table 7. — Membership in other cooperative and social organizations reported 

 by 6^3 members of the Tobacco Groioers' Cooperative Association 





Members 

 interviewed 



Number reporting membership in — 



Pool 



No other 

 cooperative 

 association 



1 other co- 

 operative 

 association 1 



2 other co- 

 operative 

 associa- 

 tions i 



Coopera- 

 tive cotton 

 association 



Social or- 

 ganization ' 



Sun cured 



Dark fired 



31 

 102 

 195 

 154 



161 



30 

 94 

 175 

 38 

 93 



1 



7 

 20 

 111 

 65 





 1 





 5 

 3 





 

 9 

 112 

 61 



4 

 17 



Old belt 



48 



Eastern Carolina 



11 





3 



Total — 





643 



430 



204 



9 



182 



83 



1 Including cotton. 



2 Farmers' Union, Farmers' Alliance, Grange, Farm Bureau, and Farm Protective Association. 



In many of the other States in which cooperation has been success- 

 ful there are larger numbers of foreign-born farmers and their 

 descendants. Many of these people came from countries where coop- 

 erative marketing of some kind has been practiced for many years. 

 They seem to understand more fully the aims and principles of group 



