These stories might be duplicated many times; and it is not too much
to say that the fruit growers and truckers are rapidly coming to
realize the benefits of coöperative organization. I do not believe it
any wild prophecy to say that within a dozen years the trucker seeking
a location will inquire into the marketing organization conducted by
his fellow truckers just as he now inquires into the locality’s
shipping facilities. And some time all the local coöperative
organizations marketing perishable truck and fruit will unite to
conduct a great central marketing exchange. Then the present-day
scarcities of certain fruits and vegetables at one town, while in
another these same products are decaying and going to waste, will be
avoided.
Coming back from the things that may be to the things that are, it is
worth while to note that in 1911 2,120 out of a total of 6,284
creameries in the United States were conducted on coöperative lines,
and that of 3,846 cheese factories, 349 were coöperative. In Minnesota
608 out of 838 creameries were coöperative. In Wisconsin 347
creameries out of 1,000 and 244 cheese factories out of 1,784.
In these as in other lines of business coöperative associations are
largely localized. A successful coöperative creamery in a locality
helps to organize other creameries near it on a coöperative basis, and
so on. Similarly, the successful coöperative rural stores of the
country are largely grouped in Minnesota and Wisconsin, having spread
from one or two unusually successful ventures in small towns. The
coöperative grain elevators of the country are mostly located in Iowa,
the Dakotas, Minnesota and Illinois, although Nebraska and Kansas have
over a hundred each. Where one farmers’ telephone line is organized
another is likely to follow, and whole counties have been covered in
this way.
In short, the coöperative spirit is like the little leaven which
spreads and spreads until it leavens the whole lump.
It is not only that a successful coöperative enterprise leads to the
establishment of similar enterprises in nearby communities. More
notable and striking still is the fact that a successful coöperative
enterprise in a rural community seems often to put new life into the
whole community and to give the farmers entirely new conceptions of
their own capacities and the possibilities of their vocation.
Take, for example, the story of Svea, Minnesota, as told by a recent
visitor to that town—a visitor, by the way, who went to Svea simply
to see how the farmers there were working together and what profits
they had from so doing. I quote:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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