Show FARM OPERATIVE cooperative CO COOPE OPE SELLING by GLENN G HAYES W 0 A 1124 1 1 I locern union plan of marketing immense tobacco crops asir tr AINT such a bad crop ought to bring round GOO jelt jeff clay mused as lie ile loaded ills his fouracre four acre crop of it barley tobacco in the lie square flat do baskets piling them high on ills great wagon ills his heart was full of dreams of a fat and a paid up grocery gracen bill as lie waved goodby good by to the four little curly leads heads lined up lip on the doorstep of ills his one roomed shanty yessula Yes suh sull ill buy them kids some shoes the big wagon zigzagged across the country toward the great ware ahouse in Lexing trin and mahe jest maybe I 1 kin get the little woman a dress a silk dress two hours later jelt jeff stood anxious eyed in the long brightly lighted warehouse where thousands of baskets of tobacco were lined in rows waiting the auction block the auctioneer was chanting the bids it was jefts crop ills his whole gears cars work was at stake in a few minutes it would be sold sold to the highest bidder ile he could hear the monotone of the auctioneers deep bass voice ile he could see a blurred mass of aba sharp 1 ri featured buyers the auctioneers voice pounded in ills his ears with nun insistent monotony fourteen it n a quarter a quart quarter Pr a quarter fourteen n a half a half sold I 1 jeffs knees trembled surely there must be a mistake but he had heard it with ills his own ears lie ile turned heartsick ills his whole crop had brought less than 3 00 ile he take anything home to tile the little family lie ile dould nt even pay ills debts but lie he had to sell it never did any good to hold off that was in 1920 growers saw the light somehow or other jeff managed to stay in the tobacco raising business indeed there was vlas nothing else lie he could do in 1921 however just one year later jeff received an average price of 21 cents a pound for his entire crop and the price a bit of sheer luck tills time ife he was sas a member of the burley tobacco growers cooperative co operative association in kentucky the auction block was gone A new system of tobacco marketing bad made its way into the southland a system that was stabilizing tile the whole industry jeff alft was just one of the tobacco f farmers who had made a fair profit by joining the big operative cooperative co in 1920 1020 tobacco growers all over the united states raised a bumper crop of the golden weed 1918 and 1919 had been splendid seasons their crops had brought enormous prices for the first time in years the war was on en up until tills this time tobacco raisin raising in the south was a poor paying proposition for anyone except the big planters who owned from 75 to 1000 acres the small landowner and the tenant seldom made more than enough to buy their pork and corn meal then came those toji two amazing seasons when i lien een e ex en the tenant farmer had money to spend after hed spent it he be borrowed till all lie could scrape together even moraga mortgaging his future crop to plant plenty of neres acres tor for 1920 the acreage was the largest in years the crop the lie heaviest tobacco farmers felt sure of a good return although they hail had no control over the market us as always it was in the hands of the bi buyers tyers suddenly almost overnight tobacco became a drugon drug on the market markel buyers take it for the giving the warehouses opened for sales closed bened opened nud and then closed again the tobacco that was sold went for less than it cost to produce it for the alie first arst time the tobacco farmer fanner began to think of the selling as well as the production end of farming try operation cooperation co the operative cooperative co movement was the result one year later there were ove five great operative cooperative co marketing lations in the united states each growing a particular type of tobacco and composed of tobacco farmers selling two thirds of the entire american tobacco crop when the price slump came in 1920 tobacco farmers were on the verge of ruin everywhere there was bitterness co operative marketing was proposed ns as a way out cut but the hurley burley tobacco growers of kentucky had tried a sort of operation cooperation co back in 1900 1906 and it had resulted in those never to be forgotten night rides they knew that it was useless to operate cooperate co to control production what they had bad tried before to control the marketing of their crop was an untried field they hesitated then they got tile story of the site ces of operation cooperation co in california california farmers tari neni were prosperous and coli contented tented the tanner and his i family were well dressed they had accounts and automobiles judge robert Bing bilan publisher of tile the louisville courier journal took a trip to california la jn 1021 1921 ile he saw for himself what operative cooperative co marketing was doing for the west judge bangham abbed aaron the co lawyer to meet with a group of hurley barley growers to outline a co opera tive marketing plan like the one used in california under the system ly by which jeff clay and his neighbors sold theli crops the grower knew scarcely an aej thing about the grading of tobacco they seldom knew the grade of 0 their an stuff tile the new plan which aaron salero brought to kentucky was entirely different it proposed doing away with the old auction system it was a plan to get the hurley burley growers to sign a contract to turn their tobacco crop every leaf of it over to the co opera operative the th e association for six years when 75 71 per cent of the growers had signed tile the contract would become effective fec tive later the south staged the first big drive for members in a little over a month tobacco growers producers of 70 76 per cent of the 1920 crop had signed a contract A board of directors was nas elected and jaroc james s C Q stone of lexington was made president and general manager then the tobacco board got cot busy kentucky had no operative cooperative co maz marketing law to save time they incorporated under the operative cooperative co marketing law of north carolina but they have any trouble getting a marketing law passed in kentucky once the leg Is lalure met providing warehouses the warehousing question so simple there had to be ware warehouses bouses to receive the tobacco but there was no money or time with which to build ahem before the crop would be ready to move aaron saparo had thought about that lie ile had provided a plan which allowed for a subsidiary corporation to be formed for the purpose of buding warehouses to be paid for over a period of six years the payments being deducted from the proceeds of the gro growers Ners tobacco at the end of six years the warehouses would belong to the operative cooperative co growers each grower would own a share based on the amount of his deliveries tills this plan was proposed to warehouse men immediately the association took possession of more than worth ot of property without paying a cent in cash where to get the money fol foi the first advance payment that was the biggest problem after the first payment had been mot met it would be easy the cost of doing business would be deducted from the proceeds of hie growers it was at this particular time that the ibe banks offered their assistance si louisville and bankers offered to loan in spite of the fact that one of the leadin ing banks of the south gave out the opinion that the whole operative cooperative co opet stive movement was illegal judge ahng ham offered a million dollars of 0 his personal fortune the country tinkers too hundreds of them conned their limit altogether they subscribed A group of expert buyers worked out a system ot of grading the system lilt upon Is declared to be the best one ne ener eier devised the tobacco was gril graded d at the local warehouse ouse where the grower received a receipt which stated what he had delivered together with a draft upon tile the association of so many cents per pound for the grade the local banker paid full value for bals draft after the tobacco was re dried and stored in the lexington warehouse president dent stone wired all the buyers to come and give their orders and lie he sent them samples of all the 52 grades roles for the first time tim e in history the buyer asked what are the prices within 40 days rill nil the loans for the first advance payment had been paid oft off and a second payment had been beell unade made to growers grovers based on sales the average price received was cents per pound net after all overhead ove rheal charges had been deducted the aver age price received by growers outside of the association was almost two cents less the average operating cost dining 1921 and arid 1022 was avas three fourths of a cent per pound many new members since the first sign up more than growers have joined their neighbors for operative cooperative co marketing in the butley district alone the association functioned in full mast blast with the 1923 1921 crop handling pounds of a pound crop other tobacco farmers in other tobacco states have taken up tile the work their membership adds three quarters of a million more to the operative cooperative co ranks in the virginias arid and the carolinas bright tobacco growers have organized the tobacco growers co opera tive five association handling per cerit cent of the total crop the members of the dark tobacco growers co cm operative opera live association control 75 per cent of the total crop in the eastern castein states la Is the connecticut valley tobacco association which has over aw 00 members producing 84 per cent of the cigar wrapper tobacco grown in connecticut and massachusetts in wisconsin Jn 78 per cent of the states crop Is controlled by the members of tile co tobacco pool jeff clay whose average income for ten years had been somewhere around 00 doublet doubled it in 1911 1921 for the first time in live fire years jeff bought t new shoes for ills little family if you were to happen happen down in bourbon county today you would land find jeff clay living in a new four room bungalow with glowered wall paper in the parlor find and a brussels rug on the floor jeff do ent owe the country grocer grocer a cent for tile the first time in twenty years so BO the grocer say jeff Is just one of the thousands and thousands of tobacco farmers who Is learning something about living |