348 
“BULL" DURHAM 
NOW 
2 Bags 
/ or JC < r 
EIGHT CENTS A PAG 
The man who smokes “BULL” 
Durham has found his best friend 
for life. He’s settled down to 
real tobacco quality and enjoy¬ 
ment; and a gratifying economy. 
The new price gives you lots 
more for your money. 
The WINDMILL with a RECORD 
The Auto-oiled Aermotor has behind it 9 
years of wonderful success. It is not an experiment. 
The Auto-oiled Aermotor is the Gen¬ 
uine Self-Oiling Windmill, with every moving 
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Oil an Aermotor once a year and it is always 
oiled. It never makes a squeak. 
The double gears run in oil in a tightly enclosed gear case. They 
are always flooded with oil and are protected from dust and sleet. 
The Auto-oiled Aermotor is so thoroughly oiled that it runs in the 
slightest breeze. It gives more service for the money invested than 
any other piece of machinery on the farm. 
You do not have to experiment to get a windmill 
that will run a year with one oiling. The Auto-oiled Aermotor is 
a tried and perfected machine. 
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The Aermotor is made by a responsible company which has specialized in steel windmills for 36 years. 
AERMOTOR CO. 
Chicago 
Kansas City 
Dallas 
Minneapolis 
Des Moines 
Oakland 
150 Acres—200 Apple Trees 
3 Cows, Horses, Poultry, Crops 
Tools, Incubators, brooder, spraying outfit, etc.; splendid 
tanning district, schools, stores, churches; within 5 miles 
two market towns; dark loam tillage, brook-watered 
pasture, 300 sugar maples, sap house, equipment, es¬ 
timated 500 cords wood-timber; pears, cherries, plums, 
200 apples; good 6-room house, garage, poultry houses, 
60-ft. barn. Owner called away $2,800 takes all. Part 
cash. Details and picture page 18 Illus. Bargain Catalog 
money-making farms, best sections United States. Copy 
free. STROUT FARM AGENCY, 150R Nassau St„ 
New York City. _ 
NATURAL LEAF TOBACCO 
Chewing 5 lbs. $1.75; 10 lbs. $3.00. Smoking 5 lbs. $1.25; 
10 lbs. $2.00. Pay when received, pipe and recipe free. 
FARMERS TOBACCO UNION, D1, PADUCAH, KY. 
We manufacture a ready 
p P, t. | l\ t x made Cedar Picket and Gal- 
* A vanized Wire Fence—inter¬ 
woven— Painted Green—Red—or Plain—made in 
3 or 4 ft. heights. For chickens, farms, yards and lawns 
100 FT. TO ROLL 
Used extensively for snow protection along Highways 
Write for prices and catalog. 
NEW JERSEY FENCE CO., BURLINGTON, N. J. 
American Agriculturist, April 5 ,1924 
Problems of Cooperation 
{Continued from page 340) 
Now that same principle applies likewise to 
wheat, to livestock, to cotton, to tobacco, to 
anything you mention. 
You can not make a price by co-operative 
marketing. But there isn’t a thing raised on 
the farm that you can not merchandise more 
profitably than you can dump. Now you can 
dump either as individuals or as local units; 
but in whichever way you dump, it is still 
DUMPING—and you break your own price 
by dumping. 
If you can stop dumping, first, by individ¬ 
uals, and second, by these so-called local mass 
units, and get a commodity viewpoint and a 
commodity organization, then you have some 
chance to affect price values and you have some 
share in making the price value of your own 
products. That is the biggest thing to keep in 
mind in the technique of co-operative mar¬ 
keting. 
Keep Commodities Separated 
Then you have to keep the commodities 
separated. You can organize oranges in one 
association. You can also add grapefruit and 
lemons in that associat’on. That is because 
they are related commod ties. But never put 
a non-perishable with a perishable; and never 
put two commodities together that are sold into 
different channels of trade. 
The California Prune & Apricot Growers’ 
Association handles prunes and dried apricots. 
It doesn’t handle one FRESH apricot, because 
fresh apricots are sold either for the commission 
house trade or to the canners; there is a totally 
different channel of trade, and a totally differ¬ 
ent financial problem. Dried apricots and 
dried prunes are sold to exactly the same per¬ 
sons; and have exactly the same type of finan¬ 
cial problem to meet, so we can combine them. 
But you can not even combine corn and wheat 
intelligently in one association, because they 
are sold through different channels, for different 
uses. The man who raises wheat, you know 
you can compel him to deliver; you can lend 
money on his wheat when he puts it into an 
elevator, and gets an elevator wheat ticket. 
But corn, why the farmer doesn’t even know 
whether he is going to sell his corn or whether 
he is going to feed his corn; so he keeps it in his 
crib—and rightly so—until he makes up his 
mind which is going to give him the greatest 
return. You can not borrow money while the 
corn is in his cribs on his own farm, because you 
don’t know if lie is going to be COMPELLED 
TO DELIVER or if he is going to have the 
option of feeding i.t. Wherever you have a 
commodity which differs in channel of sale, or 
in financial problem, from another commodity, 
never combine them into one association. 
Membership Solely of Farmers 
Then, your associations must be formed of 
farmers only; and only the farmers who are 
raising the crop that the association intends 
to sell. Don’t have cotton men in tobacco 
associations. Don’t have tobacco men in apple 
associations, unless each man can qualify and 
join that association in the same relation as 
every other producer in that association. 
Farmers sometimes join nine different asso¬ 
ciations. In each case, his nine commodities 
are being handled by a special commodity 
association built around that commodity, 
specializing on the problems and the marketing 
of the commodity. 
You must be democratic in control. One 
man, one vote, no matter how big you are or 
how little you are. Proxies ought to be for¬ 
bidden by law. You should stick completely to 
one vote—one man; and if the farmer can’t 
attend the meeting, then make some arrange¬ 
ment for voting by mail. 
Then you should district for directors. 
Never let any one section control a directorate. 
If you have less than 5,000 members in a co¬ 
operative, it is best to have direct elections, 
districting so that you have about five or six 
hundred in a single district. Always have each 
district elect a farmer who lives in that district 
and grows his products in that district. Don’t 
allow a system of absentee landlords to ever 
control any co-operative association. 
When you get co-operatives with over 5,000 
members, then you may have to use the system 
of delegate voting. 
When you form a co-operative you have to be 
absolutely sure that you are going to have 
something to sell. Co-operative spirit is one 
thing; but somebody might interfere with the 
spirit before the time comes for the actual deliv¬ 
ery of a commodity. Encourage the co-opera¬ 
tive spirit to have the man sign a contract; and 
then the spirit will move into the contract; and 
when once the contract is signed, rely on the 
spirit PLUS contract. 
Even the old-time co-operatives used con¬ 
tracts—indirect ones! 
Have you ever read any of these by-laws that 
these co-operatives use? Why, those by-laws 
are contracts! Loose contracts in by-laws! 
But modern co-operatives rely on spirit plus 
tight contracts, put out for what they are 
namely, definite, written, legal, valid, enforces 
able agreements which state in detail the obli¬ 
gation of both parties. 
Co-operation which depends solely on spirit 
is beautiful but not enforceable; and co-opera¬ 
tion which depends on spirit plus contract is 
equally beautiful and more dependable. 
What is the best form of these contracts? 
Why, there isn’t any best form. You have to 
get the contract that best suits the commodity. 
If it is a perishable product and you have no 
financial problem, you may use an ordinary 
agency agreement. 
If it is a non-perishable, where you have a 
financial problem, then you have to pass title 
to your co-operative under a sale and re-sale 
contract, so that the co-operative can put the 
commodity into storage, get warehouse re¬ 
ceipts, borrow money on those receipts, distrib¬ 
ute the money immediately to the farmers, and 
then do orderly marketing with that commod¬ 
ity. Each one has to be studied by itself. In 
most cases, the limit of your contract should 
be a state. 
Pooling Best for Non-Perishables 
The best contract of the non-perishable 
groups is the pooling agreement, under which a 
man agrees to turn all his cotton into a State 
association; the association agrees to grade and 
class that cotton and then to pool it by grade, 
and then sell it, deduct the cost of doing busi¬ 
ness only, no profits, and no commissions, and 
then distribute the net returns so that each 
producer gets the same as every other producer 
for the same quantity, quality, grade, staple 
length and class of cotton. The directors have 
to be in the same pools as the other members. 
If he wants a good price for his cotton he has 
to get that very same price for the smallest man 
in the entire association. If he wants to put a 
charge on the other man’s cotton, he has to 
put that very same charge on his own cotton. 
Now there is a community of interest, in 
which every man has exactly the same relation¬ 
ship to the co-operative. There can’t be any 
favoritism, the manager can’t do a better 
thing for the director than he does for the small¬ 
est member. He can not shoot the director’s 
stuff into a high market and shoot the little 
man ’s stuff into a low market. He has to recog¬ 
nize the community of interest. I want to tell 
you frankly that without pooling it is all baby 
talk to talk of mei chandising any non-perish¬ 
able product capable of grading, because whose 
stuff will you hold? Whom will you favor? 
Whom will you disfavor by selling into export 
markets as against your local market? With a 
non-perishable, you can not merchandise un¬ 
less you pool. With a perishable that is capa¬ 
ble of grading the same rule applies; either you 
pool in contract, or you pool by routing and get 
the effect of pooling by your routing. 
Contracts Must Be Enforceable 
Then those contracts must be enforceable. 
Contracts are not ropes of sand. Contracts are 
ropes of steel. If one farmer signs up with his 
fellow farmer, it is ridiculous to talk about not 
enforcing the contracts. I have heard farm 
leaders say “what a terrible thing to make a 
man keep his contract!” Well, every man 
makes the farmer keep his contract, when the 
farmer signs a note for payment of money, 
when he signs a mortgage, when he signs a deed 
of trust, when he signs an agreement to sell to the 
outsider—everybody makes the farmer keep 
the contract. Why are the contracts that are 
against the farmer so sacred, and the contracts 
that the farmer makes for himself—why must 
they be simply as thin as air? 
In North Carolina, in Mississippi, in Texas, 
in Oregon, in Washington, Wisconsin, Kansas 
and Kentucky in the last two years, there ha ve 
been decisions holding not merely that you can 
get liquidated damages, but also injunctions to 
stop delivery outside, decrees for specific per¬ 
formance to make the farmer deliver to the 
co-operative. 
Contracts for Long Term 
All contracts should be for long terms and 
firm. It takes several years to develop the 
right personnel; good trade connections; good 
financing channels. The withdrawal arrange¬ 
ment simply means perpetual war with the 
dealers and completely endangers any sane 
system of buying plants and of merchandising- 
There is one other point, among others, that 
is necessary to keep in mind on technique. A 
contract that doesn’t provide a minimum 
without which you won’t start, is a contract 
that invites trouble. 
You have to fix a regular minimum. Aou 
have to be certain of a definite delivery to you; 
and that delivery must be enough to enable 
you, first, to pay your overheads for good men, 
without costing too much per dozen, too much 
{Continued on gage 361) 
