COOPERATIVE PURCHASING AND MARKETING ORGANIZATIONS. H 
STATISTICS OF COOPERATION. 
METHOD USED IN SECURING INFORMATION. 
In January, 1914, the Office of Markets and Rural Organization 
undertook a survey of cooperative marketing in the United States. 
The first step necessary in a study of this kind was to secure a list 
of the names of the cooperative marketing organizations of the United 
States. A nucleus for such a list was secured from the mailing list 
of the department and to this were added names received from 
various other sources. Through the Bureau of Crop Estimates of 
the Department of Agriculture a letter was sent to the voluntary 
crop correspondents scattered throughout the United States. This 
letter requested the correspondent to furnish the department with 
the names and addresses of all the cooperative marketing organiza- 
tions in his territory. Through the States Relations Service of the 
department additional names were secured from the comity agents. 
In addition, some of the agricultural colleges, secretaries of state, and 
State departments of agriculture furnished such lists of organizations 
in their States as were available. From these various sources 
approximately 12,500 names of farmers' purchasing and marketing 
organizations were secured. 
Questionnaires which called for information relating to the plan of 
organization, the number of members, the kind and volume of busi- 
ness, the method of distributing profits, and other items were sent to 
the organizations on the list compiled by the Department of Agri- 
culture. Many were returned with the information that the organi- 
zations had discontinued business. On account of inaccuracies in 
the names of some of the organizations reported, there were some 
duplicates on the list. In some instances the names proved to be 
those of private concerns, not farmers' or cooperative organizations 
in any sense. These corrections reduced the number on the list to 
about 12,300. In all, 5,424 organizations have been included in the 
final summations (see Table I). This means that more than 6,000 
organizations have failed to report. It is believed that many of these 
are not actively engaged in business, because they have failed to 
reply to repeated requests for information. It is also probable that 
some of this number failed to reply because they are private concerns 
and therefore do not come within the scope of this survey. 
All of the strictly private concerns and the stock companies in 
which a few stockholders appear to operate the business principally 
for their own benefit have been eliminated, in order to .make the 
survey include as nearly as possible only farmers' cooperative mar- 
keting organizations. While no hard and fast rules of classification 
have been laid down, an attempt has been made to include all of 
those organizations which are composed of a number of farmers and 
are operated primarily for the benefit of the patrons. While a num- 
ber of these organizations would not be classed as cooperative under 
