American Agriculturist, April 28,1923 
Cooperation and Orderly Marketing 
President of NewYork Farm Bureaus Talks to 500,000 People by Radio April 18 
T he comparative recent growth of co¬ 
operative organizations by producers 
on a commodity basis here in the East 
may raise a question in the minds of 
people, particularly consumers, as to just 
what the advantages of this method of mar¬ 
keting may be. While farmers have been 
discussing cooperation for years, the great 
war and its subsequent activities, both dur¬ 
ing the war period and in the readjustment, 
together with the growth of the Farm Bureau 
movement, have stimulated^ the present ac¬ 
tivity of cooperative marketing. The farmer 
is for the most part a conservative man, and 
the application of new and untried methods 
in his line of business therefore cornes more 
slowly. He must not lose his identity as an 
individual, for around him and his family 
is built the rural home, which is an institu¬ 
tion which must ever be preserved in our 
national life. A peasant population produc¬ 
ing the food of the nation might do it at a 
less cost, but the cost in citizenship would be 
something never regained in any other way. 
Necessity is the mother of cooperation, 
and for that reason our Western friends were 
more active for a time in the field of co¬ 
operation. Their distance from market, 
which involved transportation difficulties, 
created the necessity. The producing units 
on the average are smaller in the East, and 
this with other conditions make the work 
of organizing cooperatives here more diffi¬ 
cult. We ordinarily look for progressive 
By ENOS LEE 
ideas from the West, and these, tempered 
with the conservative Eastern, though, have 
always worked out a solution, for the tinie 
being at least, of most of our problems. This 
has held true with regard to cooperative 
marketing as in other lines of business, or 
thought, or government. 
New York State has a cooperative organ¬ 
ization for the selling of milk and milk prod¬ 
ucts, fruit, potatoes, maple sap products, 
wool, canning crops, hay and poultry prod¬ 
ucts. Other Eastern States have similar 
organizations to a greater or less degree. 
Aaron Sapiro, who is very largely responsi¬ 
ble for the success of the California and 
Western Coast associations, is in the East 
at the present time assisting in the particu¬ 
lar work. Very recently he has met with 
the people interested in the potato industry 
of Maine and in New York State. From 
present indications, the next few years will 
see practically every commodity which is 
grown to any extent being marketed through 
organizations set up along cooperative lines. 
The Farm Bureau, as an organization, is 
not directly connected with these associa¬ 
tions, but has very largely made it possible 
for them to come into being. It has the per¬ 
sonnel and equipment whereby surveys can 
be made and information gathered on which 
a true basis of facts can be secured. We 
believe that each cooperative should, gener¬ 
ally speaking, stand on its own feet, and it 
is more charitable to help them help them¬ 
selves rather than for them to be carried 
along on the success or failures of all the 
others. The Farm Bureau should not and 
does not engage in any commercial activity. 
However, since it is fundamentally an edu¬ 
cational institution, it can and should lend 
its efforts toward the orderly marketing and 
transportation of farm products as well as 
to the production of the same. 
This movement for orderly marketing 
should be, and I believe is, being welcomed 
by bankers, merchants, transportation agen¬ 
cies, and the ultimate consumer. It makes 
for the elimination of waste, simplifies trans¬ 
portation, standardizes grades, and insures 
a reasonable supply at all seasons. Recent 
national legislation, together with bankers’ 
associations, have made it possible to prop¬ 
erly finance the movement of crops. Mer¬ 
chants’ associations and chambers of com¬ 
merce are lending their services, together 
with the Farm Bureau, to assist any reason¬ 
able and sincere effort to better existing 
conditions. Transportation facilities, rail¬ 
roads, waterways, and motor transport look 
with favor on any movement which can aid 
them in carrying products from shipping 
point to destination, and I believe the con¬ 
sumer, which means all of us, will see the 
result in the quality and quantity of the 
products and service we buy, and we can 
and will receive value for value given. 
Radio Fishin’ 
Was The Editor “Frying Steak,” or Making A Speech? 
D ear editor ED: I had a experiance 
last night that I wanted to tell to your 
large fambly of readers. I ain’t no writer, so 
I give you leave to change the artikel any 
way you see fit. With your permission I will 
Qolp T’l'f'P ^ 
Wall, in the first place I seen in our lokal 
weakly paper a artikel telling that Ed East¬ 
man, the editor of the good old American 
Agriculturist, was to make a radio talk last 
night. Now I have known Ed a long time. 
He ust to stop at our house, generally on 
Fridays, and eat codfish and potatoes with 
us, and I’ thought it ud be fine if I could heer 
him make this talk. So last Wednesday night, 
about seven o’clock, I dropped into a friend’s 
house where he had a home-made radio and 
showed him the artikel in the paper, and 
asked him to hook her up so I cud heer Ed 
talk. Doc, my radio friend, looked kinder 
funny and said: ‘‘Say, do you know^ anythin 
about this radio buziness?” I said “No.” 
Then he went on to explane how ther was 
somethin like 400 broadcastin stasions in this 
country, and every night, almost, they was 
all shootin out this radio stuff in the air, and 
that he ud be lucky if he cud tune in on Eds 
talk without gettin all tangled up with the 
other 399. He said the air was jest full like 
the ocean with about 400 diferunt kinds of 
fish swimmin round in it, and what I had 
ast him to do was to catch one pertikler 
lobster without hookin any of the other 399 
fish. After he told me that, it looked kinder 
complekated to me, but he said heed try it. 
I saw him do somethin under the table 
where the radio box was, and 3 little lectrik 
lights lit up in the contrapsion, and right 
away we heard a scrapin and whistlin com- 
in out of the big horn that stuck up above 
the box on the table. Then he started 
“fishin,” as he called it, which he done by 
turnin two little nobs in the front of the box 
By A A. READERS 
where the lectrik lights were. As matter 
of fact, sounded more like some one was 
fryin fish than fishin, to me—might have 
been steak fryin in the kitchen of the broad¬ 
castin stasion. 
Pretty soon we heard a banjo play in, and 
by gum! that feller cud play to. My foot 
got to twitchin, and jest as I was goin to 
stand up sos to git more knee action some 
feller somewheres else begun talking about 
his Uncle Wrigleys whiskers. Doc, my radio 
friend, says: “It is haf past seven and this 
is a bedtime story from Springfield.” Wall, 
after listenin to him a while I begun to get 
kinder sleeply myself and wondered when 
Eds talk would get caught in the machine. 
The newspaper artikel said Ed was to talk 
in W E A F at 7.30 p. m. on 400 meters. I 
did not know what that was, and anyway 
it was now past 7.30 p. m. and Doc said he 
was afraid he cud not tune in rite. Wall, 
all we had heard so far was tunes and that 
pesky story-teller, who kept buttin in, and I 
got kinder discouraged myself. 
Doc says: “How’ll we know now if I do 
get Ed?” And I said: “Don’t worry; I know 
Eds voice rite well. When he ust to come 
to our house he always ud sit down at the 
pianer and sing' ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ and 
‘Swaney River,’ and such good old tunes, and 
I ud know his voice anywheres.” 
Wall, Doc kep on with his fishin and then 
all of a sudden we heard a big, deep voice 
talkin about the Rural School Bill. I hol¬ 
lered “Whup! Let her lay. Thats Ed,” and 
then I hollered in to the horn “Hello, Ed,” 
but the statik was not workin rite or else 
Ed was afraid of losin his place in the speach 
he was readin, because he did not seem to 
hear me and kep rite on talkin. It did not 
sound like Eds voice after all, but I felt it 
must be his’n because he always likes to talk 
about that “Committee of 21” of his’n. It 
seemed that ther had been some kind of a 
joint meetin in Albany that afternoon on the 
Rural School Bill and Ed was just primed 
full of the subjeck. 
Then he got to talkin about the San Jose 
Scale, which is a nother favorite subjeck of 
his’n. ^ Wall, it was all very interestin, and 
he wound up by askin his great fambly of 
readers to watch out for the April 14 issue 
of the good old American Agriculturist be¬ 
cause he was puttin in some questions he 
wanted us all to anser. I told him “I would 
watch out for it,” and then he stoped talkin 
and a nother feller butted in and said the 
talk he had jest heard was made by E. R. 
Eastman, editor of the American Agricul¬ 
turist, so then I knew for shure that Doc 
had got the rite lobster, even if it did not 
sound like his voice. 
* * * 
A number of your Interlaken friends had 
their radios tuned for W E A F last night 
and heard your address, among them “yours 
truly.”—T. P. H., Seneca County, N. Y. 
The opening agricultural radio talk of the 
American Agriculturist reminded the writer 
of some San Jose scale-infested currant and 
gooseberry bushes and a couple of fruit trees 
in the back yard which will now have atten¬ 
tion.—H. G. H., Swampscott, Mass. 
!!= * * 
Dear Mr. Eastman —After “listening in” 
to your talk on the radio the other evening, 
I feel that I must write and tell you how 
much I enjoyed it. I especially wish to com¬ 
mend you on the simple, straightforward 
manner in which your talk was delivered. 
It certainly imparted useful information— 
thing which cannot be said of most radio 
talks.— Ernest Zadig, New York. 
