The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 18, 1915, Page 4

i i f [ 2 ¥ § i i 3 PAGE FOUR THE NONPARTISAN LEADER What Cooperatzon Did For These Farmers By Charles Edward Russell In California, at least, the law a- bout Cooppration seems to be that where there is the genuine thing and pure quill Cooperation it works, and where there is a stock issuing institution that calls itself ‘cooper- ative” it busts up. ‘A first class example of the real thing cooperation is the story of the California ‘Almond Growers Exchange. You can grow the best almonds in the world in California— the best and the cheapest. The soil and clim- ate are exactly right for them. Nevertheless, for many years mar- keting conditions were so bad that returns to the producers did not cover expenses, and yet prices were so high that the public had seldom a fair chance to get the cheap and excellent California product. Buyers Have Agreement. . When the crop was ready buyers representing the speculators went a- bout snapping up the nuts and keep- ing down the prices. There was, of eourse, an agreement among them as . to what the grower should be allow- ed to have, and, equally of course, it was just enough to keep him from cutting down his trees and going out of business. In other words, conditions in the almond industry in California were like conditions in a considerable part of the wheat industry in North Da-’ kota. The producers-did all the work and had all the risk. The manipulators had neither toil nor. rlsk and took all the profits. .Great sums of money were made out of the almond business, but the producers got none of them. All they got was plenty of hard work and the merry ha! ha! of the manipu- lators. Froze Qut ‘the Producer. In this case these light-hearted gentlemen went ‘a little too far. They cut down the producers returns un- til many went out of the business and the production began to decline. All the time California was able to produce the best almonds in the world, and* the cheapest. Repeated attempts were made to get the producers together for their own defense. ‘These associations were usually ‘joint-stock affairs or pools. The man- ipulators destroyed them by offering a higher price until the cooeprative ‘society was driven out of business. Then the manipulators restored ‘the old, conditions. Almond Growers Organize. The California Almond Growers Exchange was organized six years ago on a purely cooperative basis. There are eighteen local associations, each electing by a vote of its mem- bers a representative on the Ex- change. There is no stock. Each member has but one vote. The eigh- teen representatives constitute an ex- ‘ecutive committee that manages the sales and the change. All members are .pledged to sell their product only to the warehouses of :the local associations. ‘When a: producer brings in his nuts, whether a hatful or a wagon load, they are inspected and graded before his eyes, and -then weighed. A re- ceipt is made out giving the weight, affairs of the Ex- and grade of the consignment and that ends his cares on that subject. He now sends his receipt to the Ex- change in ‘San Francisco, and 4t once the ‘Exchange returns to-him what is called ‘an, ‘advance” against his con- signment, being from 40 to 75 per cent of its ultimate value. “Exchange ‘Has ‘System, The exchange puts together all the products of each grade, ships it to market, deposits drafts with the bills of lading, gets the money ‘and ‘completes the purchase priece to-each producer ‘according to the amount realized for each grade. For the expense of marketing the Exchange charges a toll of one-half cent a-pound. At the beginning this did not pro- vide the expenses nor anything like them, so that the men - engaged in launching the enterprise were oblig- -means. ed to carryfl'it on their personal Today the toll pays all ex- penses and leaves a handsome sur- plus. At present ‘it is employed in extending ‘and developing the sales machinery, .but evidently it will be divided among the producers. The sales of the Exchange, which ‘for the first two .years were next to nothng, are now close to $1,000,000 a year. Eighty per cent of :the almond crop of California is thus handled. ‘Helps ‘Producer :and Consumer. The-exchange has raised the net re- ‘turns to the proeducer and yet has not increased, the price to the consu- mer. For instnce,. the grade of al- ‘monds known as Nonpareil, the lead- |ing variety, now nets the producer 14 cents a pound as against 9 cents a pound before the Exchange was es- tablished, and yet.Nonpareils are not a cent. dearer to the consumer. The farmer gets a direct return and the public pays no more. That is Cooperation. ., So completly has the new system revolutionized. almond growing that . production is now being greatly in- creased, hundreds of thousands of new trees are being set out, the Calix fornia almond is beginning to drive out the foreign product and the pub- lic is beginning at last to get the ben- efit of the blessings God bestowed upon the land. That, too, is cooperaton Farmer Finds How To Pay Off Mortgage By Edwin Verton Fargo, N. D, Nov. 15.—John P. Hardivig ,a farme1 from the west- ern part of the state, had an acute attack of heart failure on the cor- -ner of Broadway and Second avenue, this city, during the early niorning -shopping hours, one day last ‘week. An ambulance was called and he -was rushed to a local hospital where an examination revealed a case baf- fiing to local physicians. As far as could be learned his symptoms were entirly new to mdical science Clutched tightly in his right hand was a copy of a Twin City Daily, the margin of which was covered with pencil notes and figures. For hours the man lay in a state of coma. Grad- ually, then, consciousness returned and when seen by a reporter for the Leader he was apparently normal. Game Here in 90’s. “You see it’s this way,” he said “I live on.a farm out in the western part of the state. I homesteadeq out there in the 90’s. I located on 160 acres of as good dirt as ever lay out of doors. There was just me an the wife. We had no kiddies yet. Mary and me thought an awful lot of each other and were willin’ t6 gd through a lot to get a home of oux own. “That first year we built a little claim shack—just a one-room affair, with a lean-to. I worked among the neighbors some that summer and in ‘town the followin’ winter—I was a «carpenter. ~He glanced at the crumpled paper ‘on the covers beside him, and a strange glare came into his eyes, Af- ter some moments, he . proceeded, rather rambling at first. . Bought Impliments, “Next spring we bought a wagon— and harness and plow. We paid part cash, the dealer taking my note for the balance, due that fall. ‘Later in the spring I had to have more machinery. My neighbors were using theirs and, I could not borrow. So I bought a disk, giving my note again. Later I got a harrow the same way. Still later a mower and a rake were added. “Well, when we ‘threshed that fall, our crop did not bring as much as we thought it would. Wheat was much lower than it was in the spring. But ‘we had to sell it at any price. We had to meet them notes and had to put up a barn for the horses and , | the cow—Mary bought the cow with money that her folks gave her. ' Thought He Saw a Way Out. He fumbled with the covers and lcoked vacantly out.of the window, then resumed. “I thought I saw a way out. Of course it was a mistake. But we all make mistakes, you know. “We had had our claim more than fourteen months and I decided to commute. Mary opposed it at first but I.won her over. I made arrange- ments with a real estate man to ad- vance the money, giving him a mort- gage at 12 per cent. “I tell you I felt pretty good when I made final proof and was owner in fee simple of that quarter section l \ of land. Of course there was a mort-| gage on it for $850. We didn’t get the whole $850, for there was a bon- us of $100 to pay the real estate man. After making final proof we had about $500 left. After paying the notes we had about $250 left and with the sale of our grain we had about $450 in all. We built a small barn and added, another room to our shack. Het Wisds Camie. ‘That year Helen came to us. She is our oldest. She was a mighty welcome little stranger, but her com- ing brought our bank balance down to less than a hundred dollars. “Next spring I flnished breaking our land and seeded, all told, 14C acres. In July the hot winds camg and—well, cookeéd it. I couldn’t even pay the interest on that mortgage, We couldn’t pay anything. How we got through that next winter I don’t know. I never will know. “The next year the harvest was good. That’s the year, Paul, our old- est boy was bhorn. In June wheat was $1.23. They said it was because there was a shortage all over. the world. Prospects looked, good, I ‘tell you. As we saw :that wheat turning golden we had many happy dreams—dreams of ‘a free home. But no sooner did we begin to oil up the binder—yes, I had bought a binder with my -note-—than wheat prices began to waver: By the time the wheat was half cut the price had dropped five cents. Then *fHg’ bottom fell out. It tumbled and slid COURSE. Maddock, N. D., Nov. 12—The sec- ond annual short course of the Ben- son County ‘Agricultural ‘and Train- ing ‘school ‘will be held for eiglteen weeks beginning Nov. 15, 1915. This ‘course is designed especially for boys and girls that cannot leave the farm until. after fall work has been finish- ed. Persons over fifteen years of .age may enter. Courses in agriculture, farm. mechanies, . cooking, ' sewing, household, mangement, business Eng- no -expense other than the few dol- lars for books. If you are interested notify Supt. Jackson at once and be ready to enroll the first day, Nov. 15. Agriculture. The work in agriculture will be largely ‘elective. Courses in the fol- lowing will be offered: 1. ‘Agronomy—Grain Study. II. ‘Horticulture—Truck and, Farm Raising. HI. Animal Husbandry, Histroy of Farm Animals, Feeds and Feeding, - Fune:- mighty| and rolled to the bottom. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead and the strange look came back into his eyes as he fumbled with the Twin City Daily. Wheat Up and Dowm. “Well, we had to renew the mort- gage,” he continued. “And each year it was the same story. Wheat up in ‘the spring and down in the fall, We worlked, waited and hoped— hoped thdat. some day wheat would be the same’in October that it was in Bat that day has never come yet. - : ‘That’s how I came to be here in this hospital. Here, look at this.” And he thrust the paper into my hands. - “I' have found a way to pay off my- mortgage.” I unfolded and straightened out the -paper. advertisement.- The advertsement an- nounced that bran was a most help- ful food, that it made fine biscuits, that physicians recommended it and that it was on sale at all grocers at 15c a pound : ““Will"Bive Wheat Away. ““You see,” he said, as I looked on with blank amazement, “I. had ‘5,060 bushels of wheat this year. I got 86 cents a; bushel for it. That brought me $4300 Now that 5,000 bushels of “Wheat produced 40,000 pounds of bran. At 15 cents a pound that would, bring $6,000. After this I am going to give my wheat away and just take the bran. That’s why PPm in the hospital.” B R AT L O s S S e e e B _BE NSON -COUNTY SHQORT|lish and farm arithmetic are offered. | Breeds and Breeding, Stock Judging Tuition will be free and there will be |and Elementary Veterianary Science: IV. BDairying. Farm Mc;cbqnlu. L I. Farm Carpentry—A thorough course sin the care and handling of edged tools. Construction of farm projects. : II. Forge Work—Shaping of Iron and Steel. Work in tool making and tempering. Methods of welding. HI. Mechanical ‘Drawing. ‘Heme :Economics. The course will include plain cook- ing and plain sewing. Special atten- tion will be given to value and cost of foods, and their combination in planning menus. Home Economics A. Cooking of beverages, vegetables, fats, and breads. Sewing of seams, mending, drafting simple patterns and making of plain garments, Home Economics B. Cooking of meats, eggs, pastries, salads, desserts, and serving of medls. Sewing is a continuation of the sewing = Home Economics A. -This course may be taken by those who have completed - Home Economlcs A, He -pointed, to a display . L § ¥ it