CO-OPERATION. 



29 



maintained, if, after thorough discussion and careful deUberation 

 of a question, members refuse to be guided in their action by the 

 ruUngs of the majority. 



Growers of vegetables, fruits, and farm produce, have formed 

 many kinds of associations. Some involve whole states, some a 

 county or several townships, others only a small neighborhood. 

 Some are social in their function, others take up the educational 

 side; while others buy farm supplies in carload lots, thereby securing 

 the lowest available prices. Some take up the sale and distribution 

 of produce, but leave the returns to be made direct to the growers, 

 while others carry out the actual sale of the produce, pooling the 

 proceeds. 



Pooling is the technical name applied to treating every grower 

 alike. Pooling means only that the price returned to each grower 

 for every package shipped on any one day is exactly alike, no matter 

 where the grower lives, what car he shipped in, where the car was 

 sold or what price it brought. 



The fact that a car was sold particularly fortunately for a high 

 price, or unfortunately at a low price, does not affect the net returns 

 in cash to the grower who happened to ship in that car, except as it 

 affects by the smallest kind of a fraction the net result of that day's 

 total sales. The day's total sales are pro-rated among those who 

 shipped that day, in proportion to the quantity of each grade and 

 variety shipped, and this average price is what each receives. This 

 is the essence of pure cooperation, the sharing of the losses as well 

 as of profits. 



In this great Empire State we have several small and a few large 

 vegetable associations. Among the latter, are the Long Island 

 Cauliflower dissociation and the Long Island Potato Exchange. 

 The Long Island Cauliflower Association is an incorporated associa- 

 tion, capital $10,000.00, with president, vice-president, secretary, 

 treasurer, and board of directors. The object is, as the name im- 

 plies, the handling of cauliflower. They do not have an inspector 

 or central packing house, neither do they contract with their members ; 

 their goods are not pooled, but sold to the Association at the New 

 York City quotations each morning, or the members have the privi- 

 lege of selling to any other buyer. They handle seeds for members, 

 also empty barrels that are used for packing cauliflower. Their 

 members are well pleased, also satisfled that they get better prices 

 now than before the Association was formed. 



