dealing with canners of the type mentioned many growers have made but a scant living, and have not received an adequate return for their labor or investment.

The growers in this locality found that the whole solution of their troubles was to cooperate, which they did.

ADVANTAGE OF COOPERATION

By cooperation the growers bettered all conditions. They received one dollar more per ton for their tomatoes than they had been previously paid and were given a better contract. In this contract the preserver agreed to receive all marketable tomatoes to a certain date, and further consented to a two-payment clause in the contract payment for one-half of all tomatoes delivered up to September fifteenth, and the balance within ten days after the remainder of the crop had been delivered. They also agreed to furnish packages. In fact they were much more congenial and businesslike than they had been, and there was really a change in business, which was, I believe, for the good of all concerned.

Cooperation is a necessity in some localities; growers have been compelled to either "get together," or go out of the business. Canners as a rule do not advocate dealing with a cooperative association; in fact they have been more or less antagonistic. But I believe the time is not far distant when they can be made to see the efficiency and wisdom in doing so as soon as it can be shown. that a policy of this kind takes into consideration fairness to the

canner.

If the growers are to demand fair play they must in turn do their share, and while an association is, undoubtedly, in a better position to maintain a fair price for its products and demand fair treatment for its members, it should at all times apply good sense in conducting its business. We must not ask an exhorbitant price; the canner must receive the raw products within certain limits of cost, and the treatment accorded him should be in the light of a prospective partner. Further, we should make no distinction in the matter of fair dealings between that accorded the canner and our own members. We should deliver good quality produce, goods that would please, rather than to try to get rid of poor, unmarketable products.

The growers have not always been fair in matters of this kind. They have at times tried to deliver any but quality produce, filling bottoms of containers with poor rubbish and topping off with standard grade fruit. They have also shipped large quantities of contract produce to the open market at an advanced price, and at other times have overloaded the canneries with a large supply that possibly came from an adjoining field and was not contracted in direct violation of their contract.

A cooperative association must have some rule of fairness; must have a reputation for fair dealing; must be dependable and have fixed business principles which serve both the buyer and the seller. Our plan is to enter into an agreement with the canners and preservers for a specified number of acres of produce at a stated price. The conditions governing the contract cover varieties, delivery, loading station, baskets for delivery, right of the canner to measure acreage, quality of fruit or produce and terms of payment.

In the matter of contracting with our members, each one is required to sign a binding contract specifying acreage and agreeing that all produce marketed at canneries shall conform to the standard and conditions as set forth in the contract made between canneries and the association. We found it was necessary to have a stringent contract.

With us cooperation has made possible better business methods. It has likewise been a benefit to the canner. He now receives better quality produce; he is not disappointed in his acreage by being informed at the last minute that the grower failed to plant his crop; his expense in securing acreage with the individual growers is lessened, and improved methods of production and grading have given him better uniformity, which has greatly improved quality. The management has interested canners and preservers in distant cities and towns in the purchase of our products. This has increased the acreage in production from year to year, which has added to the prosperity of the growers, and all classes of our citizens have shared in the prosperity. The railroads have profited by the increased freight tonnage resulting from industrial activity, based on agricultural prosperity; manufacturers of farm

machinery and implements have been interested; the manufacturers of commercial fertilizer have greatly increased their tonnage in this territory; and the retail merchants who sell to the farmers, likewise the banks, receive their share by the increase in business. In the past three years we have demonstrated that cooperation for the growers will furnish an agency strong enough to control their products from orchard or field to market.

CANNING ON THE FARM

C. O. WARFORD, NEWBURGH, N. Y.

ADVANTAGES OF A FARM CANNING OUTFIT

Have you ever noticed how two men with practically identical loads of vege tables will go to the same market, and when the market closes and their loads are sold out, one man will have in his pocket as the result of the sale thirty dollars, while the other man will have but twenty or twenty-five?

We say it is good salesmanship, but is it? Perhaps it is, but many times you

will find back of it all another and a bet

ter reason, and that is confidence. One is given confidence because he is the possessor of a canning outfit and knows that if

he holds his goods rather high in market and the buyers pass him by he can take the vegetables back home and can them at a profit, while the other man who has no canner knows that if he does not sell his goods on the market he will have to dump them somewhere at a dead loss. The consequence is that he takes about any price the purchasers care to offer him.

The ownership of a home canner gives a man backbone when he goes to market. In all transactions it is a principle well established that one or the other sets the price. A willing buyer makes a fair-priced article while an anxious seller reduces the purchase price. In all lines but farming the seller sets his price.

FIG. 355.- EVERY ONE BECOMES USEFUL IN THE CANNING SEASON

which will cover the cost of production, but when it comes to the sale of farm produce many times it seems as though this rule was reversed, for the price seems to be set by the dealer who says, "I will give you so much." And because the producer has no other place to sell, nine times out of ten he will take the price that is offered, even though he may know it is below cost of production. Then he will go back home to produce more goods at the same low offering. This I believe is wrong. I believe that every grower is entitled to a price that will cover cost of production, and the home canner will help him obtain it.

The possession of a home canner makes a home market that will cover cost of production, and whenever the city market offers