6 BULLETIN 547, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AaRICULTTJEE. 
another and form an effective means of promoting the interests of 
the farmers' companies. A number of the State associations have 
formed the National Council of Farmers' Cooperative Associations. 
This organization is the representative of the farmers' elevator 
companies in matters of interstate and national importance. 
One unfortunate feature of the organization of the farmers' elevator 
companies is that so many of them fail to live up to cooperative 
principles. At first the organization of a farmers' elevator was 
considered a hazardous undertaking and it was asserted that the 
people who put money into such an undertaking ought to receive 
its profits in accordance with the amount of their investment. Now 
that the farmers' elevators are well established, all such organiza- 
tions that are not cooperative should, wherever possible, adopt the 
cooperative plan of organization. Some elevators were organized 
with the assistance of local business men who subscribed for shares 
of stock, and many of them have experienced difficulty in reorgan- 
izing, because the members who are not farmers oppose such a 
move, as it would reduce the size of their dividends. Some of the 
farmer members also make this objection. These members should 
be made to see that the profit has been produced by the handling of 
the grain and should be distributed accordingly, allowing the stock- 
holders only a fair rate of interest on their investment, if their 
organization is to be truly cooperative. 
CREAMERIES AND CHEESE FACTORIES. 
There are approximately 5,500 creameries and 3,500 cheese fac- 
tories in the United States at the present time. The greater number 
are located in the territory east of the western boundary of Minnesota 
and Iowa. The organization of factories for making cheese dates 
from about the middle of the last century; creameries for the 
manufacture of butter were started a few years later. The early 
factories were usually cooperative in form. A number of cooperative 
creameries were established in New England, in New York, and the 
surrounding States. Creameries and cheese factories were not 
established in the North Central States until later, when the country 
became settled and there was a general change from a system of 
grain farming to that of diversified crop production. The first 
cooperative creamery in Minnesota was established in 1889. At the 
present time there are over 600 enterprises of this kind in that State. 
The cooperative creamery has not encountered as well-organized 
opposition as that which the farmers' elevators have met. At first 
all creameries were local in character so that competition came 
principally from privately owned local plants. Since the advent of 
the hand separator large centralizing plants which receive shipments 
of cream from an extensive territory have been established. In 
