Take, as another example of how the coöperative leaven works, Catawba
County, North Carolina. The farmers and other business men of this
county decided some five years ago that they needed a county fair.
They got together and had it—a fair with liberal prizes but without
entrance or admission fees. Everything was free to all who came, and
the authorities saw to it that there was nothing to injure or deceive
anyone who came. The fakers and cheap side shows which are the big end
of some fairs were not allowed to stop in Hickory where the fair was
held. The fair was a success, and has been a success since. Last year
the townspeople did not feel inclined to contribute to it, but the
farmers had learned how to work with each other in the meanwhile and
they went ahead and had a fair just the same, out in an oak grove
surrounding a rural high school. Fifty horses and mules on exhibition,
50 pure-bred cattle and other exhibits to match. Those who have
attended Southern fairs will know at once from the livestock entries
that this was truly a good county fair. I doubt if these farmers could
have held this fair, however, if it had not been for the coöperative
creamery. This institution, established in 1910, when the farmers
found themselves developing a dairy industry without a convenient
market, has been the coöperative leaven in Catawba County. It was
started with a capital of $1,500, the money being borrowed and the
machinery purchased from a creamery “promoted” somewhere in Georgia by
the agent of a creamery-selling concern which persuaded the farmers
that if they got a creamery outfit the cows would somehow come to it.
The creamery was a success from the start; soon it began a new work of
service by handling the farmers’ eggs on a coöperative basis, teaching
them how to produce and market eggs of quality while securing more
than the regular market price for these eggs. The lesson was quickly
learned: it paid farmers to work together. Now they have a farmers’
building and loan association, a “Sweet Potato Growers’ Association,”
rural school improvement associations, women’s clubs, and are
preparing for a coöperative laundry. The women meet and discuss the
needs of their schools—as many women do—and then lay out a plan of
action and go to work to supply the needs—as too many women do not.
The Farmers’ Union in one district recently made a complete survey of
that district and can now tell just what each farmer reads, what he
does for his neighborhood, almost what he thinks, in so far as
thoughts may be determined by actions and conditions. In short,
“Catawba is a live county,” as any North Carolinian will tell the
inquirer, and coöperation among the farmers has made it live.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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