VALUE OF COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONS
Fig. 5.—Negro club member who made sufficient profit from the sale of butter and buttermilk to pay her way through Tuskegee Institute. The benefits which accrued through her club activities were far-reaching in that her neighbors and friends were inspired to follow the best dairy practices in an effort to emulate her successful results.
Negro farmers have manifested considerable interest in cooperative marketing. They belong to cotton, tobacco, peanut, potato, and similar associations. They usually follow carefully instructions in grading and standardization. They appreciate the opportunity of purchasing fertilizers and other supplies through the farm bureau and other organizations engaged in such enterprises. In some counties where associations have given special attention to marketing carloads of hogs, chickens, potatoes, pecans, and other products produced in surplus quantities, the negroes do their share. It has come about that most marketing plans which have been developed include negroes in their operations better than any other form of productive and educational enterprise. In cooperative-marketing associations the commodity is considered rather than the person or the community. Clarendon County, S. C., is a very good example of such development. The market bureau, which was established at the suggestion of the county agricultural agent and which is conducted largely under his direction and guidance, has the names of more than 700 negroes on its mailing list. These negroes have cooperated not only by shipping potatoes, hogs, peanuts, chickens, and other commodities, but by procuring better seed and stock in order to grow products of better quality for shipment. As this work develops in any community it gradually brings about a general improvement. It begins with individuals but always influences the entire community. (Fig. [6].)
Fig. 6.—A demonstration of home conveniences designed to lighten the labor of the negro home maker and allow her more time for self-improvement and recreation. Such demonstrations by local men or women have stimulated the adoption of good practices and have done much to bring about a general community improvement.
Such cooperation has increased self-respect and has strengthened mutual confidence. This activity has emphasized the fact that men and women limited in ambition and will power may be greatly stimulated to successful effort by the esteem and encouragement of their neighbors. The county agricultural agent of Clarendon County reported that every negro farmer in his county knows No. 1, No. 2, and Jumbo potatoes. He also reported that they are striving to produce No. 1’s because they realize that products of such quality will receive the commendation of everybody concerned and also will bring in larger returns. This realization of the value of superior products has brought about a great improvement in the type of chickens, pigs, and other farm animals raised for market.
Marketing has tended to unify and systematize extension organization in the counties more than any other work that has been done thus far. It has enlisted the active interest of all farmers, both white and colored, and of local business men. Some of the counties which will have full quotas of both white and colored extension agents, and good representative working organizations are developing extension programs to a fuller degree than has been possible heretofore. It is an enormous task to change the customs and habits of centuries or even of decades. Negroes who have grown practically nothing but cotton are slow to become dairymen, poultrymen, and truckers. They change mainly because of economic necessity.