Pooling Wo 
A CONCERTED M O V E M E N T. — Co-operation 
among agricultural producers is the universal 
order at present. There has been a wonderful move¬ 
ment all along the line, and if the right men are 
leading, and the right methods used, it will be a 
winner. It is time this should be given careful con¬ 
sideration. Every farm production is very near 
cost, or in some at half cost, for the men who grew 
it. and this bunching in all the different lines is an 
effort for self-preservation. Of course many have 
become discouraged and are curtailing or dropping 
out. but the men who want to continue, or who are 
forced by circumstances to stay, are all intensely 
concerned. 
THE PROFITEERS. — Modern profiteering has 
bred a swarm drawn from the bulging crowds that 
have got in between the producer and consumer. 
Their cost of living is high, and rents fierce, because 
they are competing with each other for places to live 
and rooms for business, and the result is there are 
about three parasites in addition to one dealer 
needed among the intermediaries. Association and 
pooling will help this some for awhile, but plans 
can shortly be devised whereby even this saving will 
ol and Maki 
stairways and nooks in cities and towns filled with 
fruits and nuts from the Pacific coast that will have 
a market while time lasts. That market was made 
by advertising and propaganda. Notice rice, after 
the growers have been educating customers, making 
a market in less than two years. It has lowered the 
price of this partial failure crop of potatoes and 
affected cereals and all similar foods. People have 
even shortened their bread ration and are eating 
rice. These fruit and rice men are wise men. They 
look after both ends, while the pooling end is almost 
worthless unless the consumer is educated. 
ADVANCE PROMOTION.—The writer promoted 
a fertilizer company in 1897 for some business men. 
We chose the analysis of brands, their names, 
“Wheat Grower,” “Grain and Grass Grower,” etc., 
got a wad of literature printed, did advertising and 
press agency work; in fact, made a market and had 
over a thousand tons sold before a wheel turned on 
the raw material or a bag was printed to hold it. 
We made a market for a company that practically 
was under our hat. IIow about food and fiber 
growers? They grow all they can, with all the avail¬ 
able labor and fertilizer they can get, and then look 
ng, a Market 
with all others in that line, and have just returned 
from the cotton convention at Birmingham, Ala., 
where I have been making a market. On the way 
down I talked to about 3,000 (they looked like 
3,000,000) delegates of the 100,000 city and town 
club women. Both these companies invited me, as 
the market is already along the way. Wife, of 
course, was along. The association pays my ex¬ 
penses out of our per cent of wool sales, and I pay 
hers. We live together and are partners. The wool 
growers get my time gratis. Yes, and some of them 
would have a fit if they had to help 10 cents’ worth. 
Well, we just had supper, the best meal since we 
had breakfast here a week ago, after paying not less 
-than a dollar each every time we put our feet under 
the hotel tables. We were remarking how good 
Providence was to us, how well we are for our age 
and what a satisfaction to be of some use and pick 
up so many good friends. 
WOOL GROWERS AT WORK.—Yes, the wool 
growers of the United States are woi*king both ends, 
and there are fully 10,000.000 who know what virgin 
wool is, and 1,000.000 have already got some of it. 
This movement will never down now. Formerly we 
Manufacturers Who Can Turn Pasture Into Virgin Wool. 
Fig. 512 
be grabbed by others. The dairymen are probably 
the oldest poolers. They did some good in regu¬ 
lating the substitute oleomargarine, but they are 
selling their milk under the cost of production, while 
it is retailing higher than ever before. Wheat 
growers have pooled, and the grain sells for half its 
cost, while the fiv-e-cent loaf sells for 15 cents. 
UNITED WORK.—Pooling to get a few cents 
more will never give permanent relief to either pro¬ 
ducer or consumer unless they are united and work¬ 
ing together, and the latter is absolutely helpless 
unless the former educates him on the real value of 
his product, so he has him for his fast friend. At 
present both the producers of milk and wheat get 
all the blame for extortionate prices to the con¬ 
sumers. Take the dairymen again. If they had taught 
the public that milk was natural food, the healthiest 
and best, and the most nourishing food in the world 
at its price, if they had a slogan, “Drink More 
Milk” staring everyone in the face, and an education 
disseminating methods of use in cooking, the public 
would be clamoring for it, and moving so every evil 
connected with the trade would be eliminated. One 
dollar a cow, annually, for the past five years, would 
have fixed it. On the other hand, a million people 
■are guzzling colored water and fizz this minute, and 
perhaps not a thousand calling for a glass of milk. 
In support of this market assertion see the stores, 
for some one to take it at some price, and find a 
market for it. No farmer has any warrant to whine 
about imposition unless he is ready to jump into co¬ 
operation and put up his share of expenses to edu¬ 
cate the public on the real worth of his products. 
There are agencies to influence the lowest price 
possible on everything he grows, and compel him to 
pay the highest of figures for all he buys, and if the 
writer had not chosen to live the easy, commendable 
life of a food and wool grower, he could be collecting 
thousands for squeezing folks who do not look after 
their own interests, and who are getting only wliat 
they deserve. 
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.—I ask the reader to 
bear with me on some personal history, which I 
believe will be educational. Influenced by Horace 
Greeley, when a boy, I determined to own a good 
little farm and red barns. I was contented along 
the years under all handicaps, side-stepping as many 
as possible, and would have continued taking some 
of the medicine farmers as a class deserve, but when 
one man with the Presidential bee ruined the labor, 
and the profiteers spawned by the war ruined the 
prices, and when I would not stand to see my son, 
who will follow me, put on, and since I want him to 
keep double our number of sheep (350) I jumped 
in among 17 wool co-operators and took the making 
of a market end. Since that I have been connected 
were a nice bunch of beggars, mendicants standing 
like with tin cups, waiting to see what some would 
throw in for us. We were considered a pest asking 
for a duty on wool, and every word we or our friends 
said was used to condemn us with clothing buyers 
and soak them with higher prices, whether they got 
wool or shoddy. We still want all the protection 
that can be had; but I will here digress to settle 
forever the tariff on wool partisanship. In the days 
when Schedule Iv was tearing the heartstrings of 
politicians, and causing dissension among good 
neighbors, a friend of Wooster, Ohio, who had a 
clothing store, said: “Reynolds, you know I’m a 
Democrat, but I want a duty on wool. For each 
cent tariff I put a dollar on a suit or overcoat, and 
if any fellow objects to the price I tell him there is 
a tariff on wool.” I asked him if the mills and the 
intermediaries all took a piece, and he replied: 
“Sure. That’s what the tariff is for. We get the 
dollars, and the blame fool sheepmen seldom get the 
cents.” Now look at the duty the manufacturers 
want on cloth, which applies to shoddy textiles, and 
then see that “35 per cent” darky in the woodpile. 
FUTURE PROSPECTS.—Now come right to the 
present time and see the mills using more wool—I 
mean wool—than ever before, unless during the push 
of war. See them with double the stocks they ever 
owned, and the big dealers fixed the same. Notice 
