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Show CO-OPERATIOtt IN NEW YORK Practical Steps Taken by Federation of Jewish Farmers of America Making Farming a Success. Our farmers in general can read an instructive lesson in the successful application ap-plication of the principle of co-operation to agriculture as detailed at the recent annual convention of the Federation Fed-eration of Jewish Farmers of America, says Vtica Saturday Globe. It will be a surprise to many to find that not only are the Jews making a notable success of farming in this country, but that they are dealing with its problems prob-lems along intelligent and modern lines. The federation has a membership member-ship of 1.400 farmers, with 63 branch organizations in 11 states. The Jewish farmers have applied the principles and methods of co-operation to mutual insurance of buildings, crops and stock, to the purchase of supplies, and to the establishment of local credit unions In Ulster and Sullivan counties, New York state, they had been unable to get their property insured in-sured at a reasonable premium until they organized the Co-operative Fire Insurance company, a concern which now carries more than one million dollars' dol-lars' worth of insurance and has saved the farmers thousands of dollars. The principal disadvantage under which the farmer labors i? to be found in the fact that he usual)! buys at retail re-tail and sells at wholecVie. This is the reverse of the practice in most other enterprises. It can be changed by co-operative organizations for buying buy-ing and selling and the Jewish farmers farm-ers have done so as concerns buying. Tbey have saved their members many thousands of dollars annually in the purchase of supplies. In the same way, their local credit unions have enabled them to borrow sums up to $100 to tide them overun-. til the crops were harvested. Previously, Previ-ously, they experienced much difficulty . in raising ready money when they most needed it. These are practical steps toward making farming a business and enlisting enlist-ing in its behalf those modern agencies which make other branches of business successful. |
