40 lULLKTIX 1206, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
association usually plan to establish a reputation for a quality- 
product, and their first efforts are directed toward standardization. 
Usually skilled workers are employed to grade and pack the product 
delivered by individual members, and in many instances inspectors 
examine each car Loaded for shipment to determine if it conforms to 
the requirements of the grade or brand under which it is offered for 
sale. Through capably directed associations a degree of standardiza- 
tion may be reached which Mould be difficult, if not impossible, to 
attain through the voluntary efforts of unorganized growers and 
shippers. 
DIFFICULTIES IN ORGANIZING. 
It has been especially difficult to organize southern sweet-potato 
growers because of the conditions under which the crop is produced. 
It is grown throughout the South rather than in certain restricted 
area-, production is in patches rather than fields, and the personnel 
of the growers is constantly changing. Sweet-potato production 
first developed as a home industry, and the marketing interests of 
many growers have been confined to the small surpluses which 
remained after providing for the farm family. 
As production increased it became more and more difficult to 
dispose of these surpluses locally and merchants and traders under- 
took to assemble these small lots and market them in carloads in 
distant cities. In the past few years large storage houses and chains 
of houses have been built by merchants, buyers, and groups of business 
men. Not only has a local cash market been furnished, but the 
existence of commercial storage houses has given an impetus to 
commercial production without any radical changes in either the 
practices or the viewpoint of the growers, many of whom are tenants. 
EARLY EFFORTS TO ORGANIZE. 
As a result of the unsatisfactory marketing conditions that have 
prevailed in recent years, partly as a result of post-war depression, 
partly from increased production, and partly as a result of uneco- 
nomic practice-, there has been a constantly growing interest in the 
possibility of marketing southern sweet potatoes cooperatively. 
Since 1918 numerous efforts June been made to form organizations, 
most of them being made by men who were not growers but who 
hoped to benefit the industry by organizing associations over a wide 
territory with the membership including growers, shippers, storage- 
house operators, merchants, bankers, and others who would con- 
tribute to its financial support. The growers themselves were the 
Leasl interested of any of these groups, particularly in those sections 
where 4 commercial houses furnished a cash market. 
Most of tin 1 organizations, which were begun with the main idea 
of promoting the industry through national advertising and to 
eliminate competition by selling through a central office, never 
reached the stage of operation. Without detailed and fundamen- 
tally sound plans of organization and operation, they were doomed 
to failure. However, they brought to the attention of the grower 
the possibilities in collective action and helped to pave the way for 
future cooperative effort 
