COOPERATIVE GRAIN MARKETING. 
17 
growers of the Middle West to follow the marketing of their grain 
beyond the local railroad station. Certainly the advantage will not 
be so great as it is commonly expected to be by those who view ter- 
minal marketing from a distance. But the conviction is general 
among the grain growers that some advantage is to be had, and it is 
doubtful whether anything but actual experience can affect that con- 
viction. The problem, therefore, is not to discourage what is a 
legitimate and proper activity 
on the part of the grain growers, 
if they wish to engage in it, but 
rather to aid in the discovery of 
means and methods which will 
make intelligent and constructive 
effort possible. 
TERMINAL ACTIVITIES. 
Fig. 5. 
-Bulk-handling elevator 
Pacific Northwest. 
in the 
To persons who have been in- 
clined to view the Canadian 
methods of cooperative grain 
marketing as something which 
should be adopted immediately 
by the grain growers of this 
.country, it may be interesting to 
know that within our own bor- 
ders at the present time are at 
least three organizations which 
resemble in character the organizations of western Canada. It is 
true that none has yet approached in size either of the two large 
Canadian companies, but the idea of centralized management and 
the operation of local farmers' elevators as a line-house system in 
connection with terminal activities is not new in this country. 
The Equity Cooperative Exchange of St. Paul, Minn., reports 
about 80 country elevators in operation as part of a line-house sys- 
tem. This company was first organized as a department of the 
American Society of Equity in 1908, and was incorporated under the 
laws of North Dakota in 1911. The local elevators of the Equity Co- 
operative Exchange are controlled absolutely by the general ex- 
change directors, but, like Canadian companies, provision is made for 
a local advisory board. In addition to country elevators owned and 
operated as a part of the exchange system, there are a number of the 
locally owned and operated type of farmers' elevators which own shares 
of the capital stock of the exchange. These, of course, are operated as 
free agencies and may or may not favor the exchange with their 
grain shipments. The exchange operates a terminal elevator at St. 
