CONFERENCE ON CO-OPERATION 



75 



THE LONG ISLAND ASSOCIATIONS 



Mr. Talmage: We have been working along the line of co- 

 operation down on Long Island for quite a good many years, in 

 particular with the Cauliflower Association. It has been in opera- 

 tion eleven years, and as our President, Mr. Aldrich, is here, he 

 will probably have something to say on that. 



I am interested in the Long Island Potato Exchange. It is 

 located in the center of the potato growing section of Suffolk County, 

 and Suffolk County is, I believe, the fourth county in the State 

 of New York in the amount of potatoes produced. We feel en- 

 couraged with the progress of our exchange during the past year. 

 We have a good many difficulties to contend with in marketing 

 .potatoes in a co-operative way that don't apply to a great many 

 other co-operative marketing organizations. But we have made 

 progress in the past year, and we have plans under way which we 

 hope will work out to market our potatoes in an individual package 

 with the brand and a guarantee of the weight and quality, and 

 we hope to be able to market them in such a way that the retailer 

 or distributor will not get two-thirds of the price they bring, as 

 they have been doing. The point made by Mr. White is very 

 evident to me, that the reason why we don't get more when we 

 have a big crop is because the people who retail our prc^ducts in 

 Greater New York and other cities never reduce their prices, or 

 very little. We know that from our cauliflower business. There 

 were weeks at a time last fall when we were getting forty cents a 

 barrel, and they still were retailed in New York at twenty cents a 

 head, with twenty to twenty-five heads in a barrel. If those could 

 have been put before the public at a lower price, so the consump- 

 tion would have increased, there would still have been a profit for 

 the retailer and a profit for the grower, as well. 



In last Sunday's Brooklyn Eagle, there was a -statement as to 

 what the farmer received for various crops and what the consumer 

 paid. For the correctness of these figures I can't vouch. I under- 

 stand the growers have been receiving very little for their cabbage 

 this winter. The article says cabbages to the value of $1,825,000 

 were sold in New York, that being the figure the farmer got, and 

 what the consumer paid was $9,125,000. It is a very burning 

 question — how we can get our product before the consumer with 

 smaller profit to the distributor. But I believe progress has been 

 made in educating not only the producers, but the consumers, and 

 I believe that in time — I hope in the not far distant future — we 

 will solve this problem. 



