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Show FARM CO-OPERATIVE SELLING By GLENN G. HAYES (tS. 1924, Western Newspaper Union.) How Wool Growers Benefit by Organization. tiTTrOOL is wool"; thnt Is what the local buyers and commission firm representatives used to tell the wool growers ns they traveler through the sheep sections buying the year's clip. "Wool is wool and It's all worth about the same price per pound" that was the comeback whenever an aggressive ag-gressive farmer was bold enough to ask for more money for his long-staple fleeces. The poorer grades set the price for a whole community. The best flockmnsters grew discouraged nnd paid little attention to their fleeces. There was no Incentive for doing otherwise all wool brought about the same price. Since the first Xevv England loom began spinning cloth, wool marketing In the United States has been along speculative lines. Xo wonder the wool business Is weighed down with speculative specu-lative features. Tins Is partly due to the fact that wool is such a variable product as to quality, shrinkage and condition and length of staple. Then, too, from the production standpoint wool is seasonable, while the demand Is distributed over all twelve months of the year. This means that the woo must be carried by someone from the time of shearing until the time It is sold ni the mill and that requires financing. From the be.-innin; of the weaving Industry the mills bought their supplies sup-plies from the r,oston dealers. The dealers had local nu-ents scattered over the country, who traveled among the farmers buying fleeces. These are the buyers who declared that "wool is wool" they had never heard of grading, grad-ing, and If they had they wouldn't have favored buyintr that wht. li w money In their pocket to put all fleeces In one creat universal class nnd tab It "wool." the price being set on the basis of Its poorest quality. In that early day farmers had heard little of the doctrine of co-operation. They tool; the price they were given, but t'ny took it with a deal of grumbling among themselves. tlrund'ling began to crystallize Into action. From time to time revolts occurred oc-curred against the old line marketing system. Itut nothing much came of them; a burst of fury, n few years of determined action, with less than medium results, then back to the old system. It Is or.ly within recent years that tiie g-ower have had any actual Influence in bettering their market prices. First Action In 1874. The first action taken against the old system wa In 174 when the flrnngei-s in Michigan. Ohio nnd Kentucky Ken-tucky established vvatvhouses where they nssenihlod wool nnd Kohl It in large quantities direct to the manufacturers. manu-facturers. The gain was only temporary, tempo-rary, for with the decline of the Hrange the warehouses passed out of the growers' bal ds. Three jenrs later the Hoodiet tsville I.nmb club at Coodlettsv iile. Tenn.. was formed. Today It is the oldest evKting co-operative market!r;g ass,), elation hi the United States. This club has pooled the lambs nnd wool of Its member and sold them by grade during dur-ing tiie -h' years of Its existence. Here nnd there both In the range mates ninl the corn belt the locnl pools were put Into operation. These organisations organi-sations were generally Informal neigh-borhood neigh-borhood croups of woo) crow-ers who had nrranged to bring their wool tiv gether nnd sell It at the same time. IhfTorent method of ale were tried. Sometimes the woo gathered wa con-sigmsl con-sigmsl to a woo! commission merchant mer-chant to be sold f ir the group, nnd otuettmcs the buyers were nsked to come to the local plants. The main ohloet of tl ese local pool w ns to assemble as-semble n large enough Quantity to make It worth while for buyer to come nnd bid on It. Sometimes It wa done for convenience In consigning to n denier nt a central point -for there ha been plenty of dissatisfaction v. Itb prices paid by local dealers. The plan of organisation wa of the simplest. There wns merely nn ngrrt-nietit ngrrt-nietit of a number of local growers to go togeiher In handling their wool. Sometime' they elected officer, but more often they Wi re represented by n committee who nrranged the details of the phm. After n year or two many of these locals failed, hut others came to tal e their plnces. nnd In 1'.M7 there w el e nt lenst '.'"i successful pools ens( of the Missouri river and three times ns many in Ihe range country. Statewide' State-wide' pools be-.-an about I'.MS with the foniuition of tiie (thin Slate pool. fo-opiTatlve marketing of Ohio wool tuny be called a result of the war. Puring tin war (lie government fixed n i hedule on prices wlili li It would pny for wool, lualer nil over Ohio made bids based on n profit of 7 to in rnlK per pound more than usual. This wide margin named wa the turning point In the old form marketing torn of Ihe slnle. In one body producer pro-ducer stood up for their rlghl. How the Plan Work. In four weeks the Ohio Sheep nnd Vnol Crowers' nnsoetntlon had been formed nnd pro ded to collect 'g7.'..IXH) pounds of the HMS wool clip. They Hold It, too, nt an Bverns" of 72 rent Dr pound. Tho denleri had offered only 60 cents. In 1921 one-tWrd of the state's growers were backing tea organization, 15,000 In nil. That year a pool of 6,79S,000 pounds, one-half or Ohio's clip, was sold. The plan works something like this: During May and June the growers deliver de-liver their wool to a central place, although al-though there Is no contract binding them to deliver. (That perhaps Is the greatest weakness of the Ohio pool.) The wool Is then shipped to leased warehouses nt Columbus or 'Wheeling, 'Wheel-ing, W. Va., for grading and storage. In addition to this association there li a warehousing company with about 2,000 stockholders. This company has a warehouse nt South Columbus, where the wool may be nssemhled, graded and stored. A commission merchant Is employed to direct the sales. The wool is pooled by grade for the year and producers are paid the receipts, re-ceipts, less the expenses. As soon as the wool is delivered the grower 1 paid 73 per cent of the value of the wool, which may he obtained on warehouse ware-house receipts. Between 1910 and 1921 this marketing plan saved the pooling farmers $1,000,000 over dealers' bids. The success of the Ohio pool, which Is the largest In the United States, has led the growers In other corn-belt states to adopt a similar plan. In 1921 Michigan had the largest pool outside of Ohio with 2,580,000 pounds, and Iowa, Indiana and New York each pooled over 1,000.000 pounds. . Other Middle West pools were in Illinois, South Dakota, Missouri, Kansas, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and West Virginia. Most of t he pooled clips of tha Middle West are handled by the National Na-tional Wool Warehouse and Storag company of Chicago, a company made up of 7iX w estern sheep growers. The wool handled through tiie company Is brought to the warehouse, where It Is graded nnd stored until It can he sold for a reasonable price. This company will handle both woo! pools and shipments ship-ments on consignments from growers. It Is not a co-oiK-ra; ive, but It does furnish fur-nish a good service In both grading nnd sales. State pools collect the wool from the local pools and this Is shipped by carload lots Into the Chicago warehouse. ware-house. The wool Is graded by state poo and the growers are sent warehouse ware-house receipts. Hut the warehouse company d"cs not make ft sale until tiie ass.viation lia given its a; proval. Usually the whole pool goes at one transaction. For this reason market- ing specialists declare tiie p'an hn-lc-ing. To sell an entire year's clip at one time Is not In line with good marketing mar-keting ethics. Orderly marketing, toward which American farmers are striving, means supplying the market with the product as the product li needed. In the Range States. In the range states wool Is the one big crop. livery pound mtt pay a Just return. There are no other crops to fall back on. Yet the wool growers grow-ers nre reluctant nhout trying cooperative co-operative marketing. These ranchers are individualists. The range is cursed with the same pro!, '.ems that are prevalent prev-alent In the corn licit. Tat It was with much hesitation nnd fear that the range growers came together to market mar-ket cooperatively. They tried It first in l'.".- in Fremont county, Idaho. The pool was a success, so much so that the growers of other states were more than merely Interested. They began pimiing with their neighbors. Tl.e movement spread slowly to Idaho, tins gon and Wyoming. Although the area covered by each pod wa .vnnil. the pools frequent!- averaged pounds. Various plans of organisation were tried. In the Idaho pool each grower signs a povor-of-attornoy to the ivo manager, who takes tho control nnd the pool Is sold at a tint rate ungraded. W hen pools of the corn belt began to meet with success there was n demand de-mand for larger pool In the West. In l'.'Jl nhout 7,OM.iiKV pounds was assembled In live large pool. Almost half of this wns In the two Montana pools. It wn In T.i'21 that tho l'aciflc Co operative Wool (Jnnvers w as or-gani.ed or-gani.ed by the Oregon Farm I'.ureau federation. It started with 1.7im members who sign, si five-year contracts. con-tracts. This Iron clad contract Is the chief difference between the l'ncitlc t'o operntlve Woo Growers and the other western wool marketing associations. asso-ciations. It differs, too. In that It hps a sales manager whose sole business Ix to sell wool Instead f turning It over to n commission merchant. This policy I directly opposed to the dumping dump-ing system of the Central West. The woo Is collected locally and sent to n bonded warehouse In Portland Port-land to lie graded nnd sold. The price has nvcniced 7 eenls a pound above that made by tho outside bidders Now the nssnclalhni h:,s spread out Into northern California. western Idaho, southern Washington nnd all of ( b e ;on. In the Southwest the mohair growers grow-ers have ori.anl7ed for co opcrallvo selling. They formed the Sonth-vvi Sonth-vvi .tern Farm Urn-can Wool and M,v hair (.'rowers' association In .Imie ,,f I'd'Jt. 1 was formed under the direc-"f direc-"f 'IVv'"i I ''nn F.nre.in on ,, Phm similar lo that used In Oregon It Is organh-ed on a commodity basis like the wheat nnd cotton farmer, . ' r""";'"' I'hidlng the grower to deliver his wool over a certain nun,, her of yearn. In spite of It mistake, nml back ward start cooperative wool marl e lug has brought wl'h It many elmnge. for the good of tl,,, sheep Industry In l!'.'t more than "'.'.ivno.tyy! pound of wool, 1,1 per cent of the American clip, were pooled by th ,;r,ny,.s. ganlTatlon. Cower,' return, -, ciimed Jl.Ol.l.tHKV. |