The Modern Farmer in His Business Relations

Burbank Fruit Association, Burbank.

Manzana Fruit Association.

San Gabriel Fruit Association, San Gabriel.

Duarte Fruit Association, Duarte.

North Pomona Fruit Association, North Pomona.

San Jacinto Fruit Association, San Jacinto.

Perris Fruit Association, Perris.

Anaheim Fruit Association, Anaheim.
Fillmore Fruit Association, Fillmore.
Cucamonga Fruit Association, Cucamonga.

Fallbrook Fruit Association, Fallbrook,

(The societies selling through the Southern California Deciduous Fruit Exchanges were all organized in 1898. Owing to the drought of that year some of them had no fruit to sell, and have, therefore, never yet actually transacted business. At the present time other organizations are forming, and the central organization also handles the fruit of some individual growers.)

Walnut Marketing Associations.

Los Nietos and Ranchita Walnut-Growers' Association, Rivera.
Mountain View Walnut-Growers' Association, El Monte.

Santa Ana Valley Walnut-Growers' Association, Santa Ana.

Saticoy Walnut-Growers' Association, Santa Paula.

Santa Barbara Walnut-Growers' Association, Santa Barbara.
Fullerton Walnut-Growers' Association, Fullerton.

Golden Belt Fruit Company, Fullerton.

(The Golden Belt Company, and possibly others, also handle citrus fruits. The walnut-growers' associations annually meet and agree upon a common scale of prices, to which all adhere. The associations control the walnut market, subject to the competition of imported walnuts.)

Raisins.

California Raisin-Growers' Association, Fresno.

Wine.

California Wine-Makers' Corporation, Crocker Building, San Francisco.

Fresh Fruits.

Contra Costa Fruit-Growers' Union, Martinez.

Florin Fruit-Growers' Association, Florin.

Honey.

California Beekeepers' Exchange, Lang.

The most important cooperative societies of farmers outside the United States are the "Agricultural Syndicates" of France. These, in the main, are societies for the purchase of supplies, especially fertilizers, and of farm machinery for rental to the members. Some of them also do more or less marketing. The aggregate membership of these societies is very large, but I

have not been able to find late statistical information in regard to them or in regard to the "peoples' banks," which are established in many countries of Continental Europe, and in many cases almost exclusively for the benefit of farmers. Cooperative creameries seem to succeed better in Denmark than anywhere else, and there are some in Ireland. In England there is little or no cooperation among farmers, as we usually think of them in the United States, but there is more or less systematic effort to promote organization of small societies of farm laborers for the rental or purchase of land to be farmed cooperatively. This is favored by some of the cooperative stores as a means of employment of their surplus capital, to be used in this manner in aid of the farm laborers. Quite a number of such societies have been formed, but thus far have usually been unsuccessful, except when the cooperative store supplying the capital afforded a home market for the product of the farm. The British cooperators, however, expect to solve the problem of cooperation among farmers for productive purposes.

II. COOPERATION AMONG OTHERS THAN FARMERS.

The

Whatever the form which the struggle for existence may take with individuals, they invariably turn, whenever it becomes severe, to the idea of cooperation. It is an instinct pervading all nature, whose exercise is recognized by social philosophers as the panacea for all curable ills of society. We are not all philosophers, however, and sometimes our views of cooperation, being confined to the bounds of our immediate necessities, are very narrow. ant's conception of cooperation may be simply of help enough to carry off a dead beetle. The Californian farmer thinks of cooperation as a device to enable him to get higher prices for his wheat at Liverpool. The British farmer thinks of it as a means for preventing his Californian competitor from selling in Liverpool at all, while the British artisan thinks of it as a means of getting cheap bread. I am unable to see any difference between the principle which leads Tim and Mike to join, under the persuasion of a benevolent society, in a cooperative dairy in Ireland, and that which moves Smith and Jones, under the persuasion of a shrewd promoter, to join in buying Mr. Carnegie's steel plants for six hundred millions of dollars. Of course there is a great difference between the motives which inspire the society in the one case, and the promoters in the other, but as for Tim and Mike and Smith and Jones they all alike wish to increase their incomes. Of course, also, my own feelings towards the two enterprises are very different. I earnestly desire that Tim and Mike may succeed, because they are not now receiving proper reward for their own hard labor, while I shall be quite content to see Smith and Jones lose their money because they are seeking, by cooperation, to obtain what other people must work to pay for. And I wish Tim and Mike well none the less because I know that if ever they find themselves strong enough they will ruthlessly make me pay $10 a pound for my butter or go without it. As I think, so thinks society, which almost unanimously favors the association of the weak, while opposing that of those who are already strong. The one it calls "cooperation," while the other is termed a "combine." It seems to me that this instinctive feeling in all of us is an expression of sound, logical common sense,

We must encourage the cooperation of those whose sacrifices do not procure for them just satisfactions, while vigorously restraining that of those who are getting what they do not earn. I recognize that the object of the farmers' Raisin Trust of California is to compel me to pay the highest possible prices for my raisins, just as that of the Sugar Trust is to compel me to pay the highest possible prices for my sugar, and yet I would support the one and subdue the other, because the one, at present, seeks justice, and the other injustice. Whenever the Farmers' Trust attempts to do injustice, as it will if it ever has the power, I would subdue that also. I think it very desirable that farmers come to take this broad view of cooperation, and hence include in this appendix a few facts regarding cooperation by others than farmers.

In regard to the general statistics of cooperation in the United States, it must be said that there is the same lack of information that exists in regard to cooperation among farmers. One cause of this is the lack of proper legislation. One of the first things to be done in this country in the cause of cooperation is the drafting of a proper law for the regulation of cooperative societies and their registration under it. Such a law would provide for compliance with certain conditions essential to security and stability, define the rights and obligations of membership, and provide for registration and regular annual reports. This is done in older countries, and is necessary here. Such a law, when drafted, could be passed without difficulty, by a little organized effort in all the states. In California, and probably in some other states, no proper law could be passed, except after a constitutional amendment. In Appendix D will be found references to a few books giving such information as there seems to be about cooperation in this country. I sought to obtain later information, but could get little or none. The following letter from Mr. N. O. Nelson, of St. Louis, which is all of value which I have been able to get, is given in full because of its general interest, although not intended for publication, and referring to various matters not closely connected :

ST. LOUIS, Mo., March 22, 1899. DEAR MR. ADAMS:-Cohn & Co., musical instrument makers, Elkhart, Ind.; Proctor & Gamble, soap makers, Cincinnati, Ohio; Spencer, Trask & Co., bankers, New York, are the only profit-sharing concerns of consequence that now occur to me in this country. [Mr. Nelson should have included his ownThe N. O. Nelson Mfg. Co., Leclaire, Ill., E. F. A.] The system keeps growing in France, and still more so in England, where an active propaganda is carried on by an association. The plan was adopted by a considerable number of concerns in this country in the later eighties, but was abandoned by most of them in the course of a year or two. There are, no doubt, a great many scattered over the country, which have been given no publicity. There was an association formed in 1892 under the leadership of N. P. Gilman, author of "Profit-Sharing between Employer and Employees," but it was abandoned for lack of sufficient support. Fifteen hundred dollars is the largest salary paid to English cooperative managers. Mr. Fawcett, who has long been the head of the great Leeds Society, with its 33,000 members and annual business of about five million dollars, gets this amount. He is of a caliber to easily command ten thousand in private employment. J. T. W. Mitchell was chairman of the English Wholesale for twenty-one years, building it up from one million to fifty millions a year. He never took beyond one thousand a year, and out of this he bore some incidentals connected with lecturing trips and attendance on meetings, where his expense account was overlooked. He was a man of so

much all-around ability that just before his death he was elected a trustee of the great Manchester Ship Canal, which, however, he declined. Salaries in large concerns are quite as liberal in England as in this country. He could, no doubt, have obtained twenty-five thousand a year, had he been willing to resign his more attractive work and dutiful life at the head of the cooperative business.

In this country, the chief cooperative stores are the Arlington, at Lawrence, Mass., with thirty-five hundred members, three hundred thousand dollars sales, seven and one-half per cent regular dividends on purchases, besides the interest on capital, and liberal additions to the surplus fund; the Johnson County Cooperative Association at Olathe, Kansas, which is confined to Patrons of Husbandry, but sells to the general public. It is twenty-two years old, has a business of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, has two branches, and from it have sprung the leading bank of the town and a good insurance company. I have been at both of these places and found them unusually vigorous and progressive. There are well-established and important stores at Lyons, Iowa, Trenton, N. J., and Galveston, Texas. There are a great many smaller and younger ones in the East and in the Mississippi Valley. The West is full of cooperative creameries, small flour mills and canneries. Of cooperative colonies, the ones at Ruskin, Tenn., Commonwealth, Ga., and Belfast, Wash., are the more important. They are doing tolerably well. I have visited the former two at different times. I have concluded that there is not much outcome to the colonies when not inspired by anything but economic motives. I exceedingly regret that I can give you so very little information, but, as you say, it is harder to get at in this country than in foreign lands. Yours very truly, N. O. NELSON.

In Great Britain cooperation has developed mainly on the lines of merchandising and production. It has had a normal, although surprising development. Beginning with a capital of a few pounds, contributed by workmen, in sums of a few shillings each, for the establishment of a retail store, the movement has grown to the proportions about to be described. The faithfulness of the Rochdale pioneers assured success for their enterprise, and their success led to the establishment of similar stores elsewhere. The opposition of private traders in some cases prevented the cooperative stores from obtaining supplies from wholesale merchants, and this led to the establishment of the great English and Scottish wholesale stores. The capital of these great societies is mainly contributed by the retail stores, to which, only, the wholesale societies sell. As trade has increased, the wholesale societies have engaged in the manufacture of some of the merchandise most in demand. They have branch establishments for buying in all countries in whose produce they deal, and own a fleet of several steamers. Being constantly charged with the custody of the surplus funds of the societies, they were led to open banking departments. They bid fair to, in the end, cover the entire field of manufacturing articles most in demand by the retail trade.

The greater part of the capital of the cooperative societies of Great Britain has been derived from the profits of the business. Goods are invariably sold at the retail prices charged by private firms. The profits go, first, to the payment of a small dividend on the share capital, next to the creation of a surplus fund, as security against losses, and the remainder as rebates to purchasers. In some cases the salesmen and other employees, as such, receive a portion of the profits, and in other cases they do not. In most cases regular provision is made from the profits for carrying on educational work, and many of the more prosperous

societies own halls, which are used for such purposes. Purchases and sales are made for cash only, thus inculcating a spirit of thrift. The educational work is yearly becoming more prominent, and cooperation among all classes is promoted in the true missionary spirit. The cooperative movement in Great Britain has developed a body of wonderful men, practically all of whom are individually poor, and yet carrying on with great ability, and constantly extending business enterprises involving the wise employment of great sums of money, and the organization and direction of a great force of employees. The English Wholesale Society is the largest strictly mercantile business in the world. There is only space here for a very brief statistical summary, condensed from the report of the Thirtieth Annual Cooperative Congress of Great Britain (1898), which is a volume of 286 large quarto pages. The pounds sterling may be roughly turned into United States money by multiplying by five.

III. DISTRIBUTIVE (RETAIL) SOCIETIES.

THE POSITION OF COOPERATION IN GREAT BRITAIN, 1898.