The most notable developments were those of the California Fruit Exchange and of cooperative societies of the North west for marketing grain. The membership of the former is made up entirely of the local citrus-growers' associations in California. It has a complete organization of selling agents in the eastern cities, and a remarkably efficient, though simple, system of equalizing and expediting shipments. Agri cultural cooperative associations of various kinds are mul tiplying all over the country, for shipping live stock, fruits, butter, cheese, and other farm products. Cooperation for these purposes called forth new activities ; packing-houses were built, and grain-elevators and creameries and dairies, and now a goodly number of the simple manufacturing proc esses are undertaken by these societies.
§ 12. Some economic features of farmers' selling coop eration. This type of producers' selling cooperation is prov ing in America to be far more successful than producers' co operation among workingmen and certain important eco nomic features in it should be noted. The local producers' selling cooperative society is composed of farmers who as enterprisers own and carry on their own separate businesses; they are not, as in the other case, wage-workers. Any pro ductive processes undertaken by this kind of society are sub ordinate to the main business, being such as picking, packing, drying, preserving, and making boxes for packing. This form of cooperation, with the related form of consumers' co operation that is fostered by it, promises to have a wide ex tension.
Some of these societies, as those dealing in citrus fruits, regulate with some success the picking and the marketing so as to distribute them more evenly throughout the year. They watch the markets and direct their agents by telegraph to di vert cars en route away from markets that are glutted with products and into markets where prices are higher. They take some of the products, as eggs in the spring at the period of low prices, and pack or refrigerate them, to be sold when prices are higher. For thus withholding the supply they are said by some to exercise a monopolistic power. But this is a more than doubtful view. As long as only the seasonal variations are equalized and the total supply of the year is not reduced, it is, on the marginal principle, an economic service to the con sumers, comparable to insurance in its utility. Reducing the
*See ch. 20, §§ 13, 14, 15.
area planted or preventing the entrance of others into the in dustry would be monopolistic acts, but these as yet have not occurred.
§ 13. Cooperation in buying. CoOperative buying (called also consumers' cooperation or distributive cooperation) has had a large growth in the British Isles since 1844, when the society called the Rochdale Pioneers was founded by a group of factory workingmen. The cooperative stores, both in Great Britain and on the Continent, have flourished mainly among the industrial workers in urban centers. However, this has not been exclusively the case, and, particularly in Denmark and Ireland, cooperative buying has increased in agriculture in connection with selling associations. Between 1890 and 1914 the growth of consumers' cooperation among European industrial wage-earners was phenomenal, especially in Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. American wage workers however, have made few and feeble efforts in this direction.
In the period beginning 1867 many cooperative stores were founded in America by farmers in the Grange movement, who operated also grain-elevators, warehouses, and steam boat lines. But the movement failed, about 1877. This re sult is easily explained by lack of commercial knowledge and lack of harmony among the members, selling on credit, and inefficient management. A new era in consumers' coopera tion for farmers began about 1900, and in several widely sepa rated parts of the country—Minnesota, Kansas, California, Washington and elsewhere—the movement has spread rap idly, supported in large part by the same persons who are members of the selling associations.
§ 14. Need of agricultural credit. Banking originated in cities and for the use of the merchant class. It still re tains pretty faithfully its commercial character. The change of farming toward a more commercial form 5 has been little 6 See abbve, I 3.
aided by banking credit. National banks and many others were forbidden in their charters to lend on the security of real estate, the farmer's one business asset.° A great num ber of farms are always in course of being purchased, the bal ance of purchase money being borrowed by the purchaser. A group of private agencies, such as life insurance and mort gage loan companies and local money-lenders, has supplied Fig. 5, Chapter 27.—Farm prices, 1909-1921.