4 BULLETIN 1302, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
federations of locals for selling purposes. Both the total member- 
ship and the total amount of business were made up of a large number 
of relatively small items. 
Since 1920 the "large" organization operating over an entire 
producing section or even an entire State has developed. The 
importance of this change in the development of agricultural coopera- 
tion in the United States will be appreciated when it is noted that 50 
of these new "large" organizations have a membership that is larger 
than the total estimated membership of the 5,424 associations 
included in the 1915 study, and the amount of business handled 
annually by these "large" associations is greater than the total 
estimated amount of business for all the associations in 1915. 
COOPERATION IN 1913-1915 
Questionnaires returned by associations and covering the years' 
1912, 1913, 1914, and 1915 were used as the basis of the first com- 
prehensive study. A total of 3,099 reports were received for 1913. 
These reports were from 1,187 associations handling dairy products, 
960 handling grain, 111 general merchandise (farmers' cooperative 
stores), 79 cotton, 456 fruit and produce, 44 livestock, 18 tobacco, 
and 244 engaged in miscellaneous selling or buying or both. Business 
to the amount of $310,300,000 was reported. (See Table 1, p. 14.) 
This was an average volume of business of $100,133. Over 70 per 
cent of the 3,099 associations were in the 12 North Central States. 
The 5,424 included in the statistical tabulations for 1915 were 
distributed through the geographic divisions as follows: 
Geographic division 
Number 
of asso- 
ciations 
Per cent 
of total 
Estimated 
number of 
members 
Estimated 
amount of 
business 
West North Central . 
2,577 
973 
416 
329 
315 
232 
215 
210 
157 
47.5 
17.9 
7.7 
6.1 
5.8 
4.3 
3.9 
3.9 
2.9 
254,425 
107, 331 
65,950 
37, 097 
30, 793 
34, 731 
35, 834 
63, 971 
20, 952 
$286, 534, 775 
90,113,770 
150, 510, 979 
10, 269, 102 
7, 683, 734 
West South Central 
20, 485, 811 
7, 170, 323 
Middle Atlantic .. 
56, 096, 060 
6, 974, 130 
Total 
5,424 
100.0 
651, 084 
635, 838, 684 
When arranged according to products handled, the number of 
associations and percentages are as shown in the table below, which 
also shows the estimated number of members and the estimated 
amount of business for each group of associations. 
Kind of associations 
Number 
of asso- 
ciations 
Per cent 
of total 
Estimated 
number of 
members » 
Estimated 
amount of 
business 3 
1,708 
1,637 
871 
275 
213 
96 
43 
581 
31.5 
30.2 
16.0 
5.1 
3.9 
1.8 
.8 
10.7 
140, 567 
166, 726 
109, 916 
59, 503 
18,404 
13, 438 
17,849 
124, 681 
$89, 061, 370 
289, 689, 218 
Fruits and vegetables 
201, 542, 646 
Merchandise (farmers' stores) 
11, 677, 355 
1, 502, 007 
5, 623, 800 
Tobacco 
6, 450, 000 
All others... 
30, 292, 288 
Total 
5,424 
100.0 
651,084 
635, 838, 684 
i Table 3, p. 18. 
2 Table 4, p. 20. 
