6 BULLETIN 1302; U. 8. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
Finally, with the aid of the extension division of the Agricultural 
and Mechanical College, a plan was proposed which provided for a 
central organization committee, county committees, and organization 
teams in every community. Meetings were held in schoolhouses, and 
the team workers personally visited the cotton growers in their re- 
spective communities. The county agents advised in perfecting the 
organization machinery, in arranging meetings, and otherwise facili- 
tating the work of the organizers. Special membership campaigns, 
called “drives,” were conducted by counties and throughout the 
State. 
The date set for beginning the membership campaign was Decem- 
ber 1, 1920, but prior to this time many contracts had been signed. 
Early in October organization work had been started in Jackson 
and Grady Counties, mainly as a test of both the efficiency of the or- 
ganization machinery and the sentiment of the cotton growers. By 
January 1 approximately 5,000 farmers had signed the organization 
agreement and marketing contract. On March 28 a state-wide drive 
was begun and during the week it lasted it was estimated that several 
thousand farmers took part in soliciting members. When the mem- 
bership campaign closed on April 1, 1921, a full month before the 
established closing date, it was found that 35,000 members had been 
obtained at a cost of approximately $3 per member. The contracts 
signed represented over 400,000 bales, on the basis of 1919 produc- 
tion, or 100,000 bales above the minimum sign-up necessary for the 
agreements to become binding. 
Following the close of the successful membership campaign, a 
temporary board of directors was named and the association was in- 
corporated under Oklahoma laws, April 26, 1921. A permanent 
board of directors was elected on May 23, the members voting by 
mail. The board consisted of 11 directors, 1 from each of 10 desig- 
nated districts of approximately equal production, and 1 being named 
by the president of the State board of agriculture for the purpose of 
representing the interests of the general public. The first directors’ 
meeting was held May 25 and 26. Offices were established in Okla- 
homa City. The first bale of cotton was delivered August 18, 1921. 
The association financed its first year’s operations, not without 
some difficulty, with loans from Oklahoma banks and from the War 
Finance Corporation, borrowing approximately $3,000,000 from the 
former and $2,500,000 from the latter. The average amount ad- 
vanced to members on delivery was $50 per bale. This was followed 
by a second payment of $10 per bale in February, and a third pay- 
ment of $20 per bale was made on three pools in March, at which 
time the association had sold about two-thirds of its cotton. Al- 
though only about one-fourth of the expected volume of cotton had 
been received, the first season’s total business amounted to $8,400,000 
when final settlement was made on July 8, 1922. 
STAPLE COTTON COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION 
Prior to the Montgomery meeting of the American Cotton Asso- 
ciation a cooperative-marketing plan had been proposed for the 
growers of long-staple cotton in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta. It 
was abandoned, however, in favor of the same general plan for a 
centralized nonstock, nonprofit organization that had so appealed to 
the leaders of the movement in Oklahoma. 
the faghlieass 
