BUYING AND SELLING. SPECIAL.
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A Farm and Home Weekly For the Carolinas, Virginia,
Georgia and Tennessee.
FOUNDED, 1886, AT RALEIGH, N. C.
Vol. XXVII. No. 42.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1912.
Weekly : $1 a Year.
MARKETING
T
-INDIVIDUm
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GOOD ROADS HELP YOU TO SELL.
They help you both because the
cost of transportation is small and
because the market can be reached
when you wish.
HE problems
of economi
cal buying
and profitable
selling are prob
lems of vital im
portance , to the
farmer, and prob
lems to which he
has just begun to
give attention.
.The buying prob
lem is probably of
less importance
than that of sell
ing, since the far
mer should be a
seller rather than
a buyer. Indeed,
so great is his loss
from wrong meth
ods of marketing
his products and
so tremendous the possible profits from better
methods and a better system of distribution, that
many farmers, surprised at the great possibilities
along this line, are saying that this is now the
greatest of all the farmer's problems.
It heeds but a little thought to convince one
that this statement is incorrect that the main
tenance of soil fertility, which is the very basis
of his ability to produce at all, must continue to
be the most important subject the farmer has to
deal with; but .this does not alter the fact that
the farmers must learn to market to better ad
vantage before they can secure a just reward for
their labors.
This issue is offered with the hope that the
suggestions and experiences presented in it may
be of some service to the progressive farmers of the South. We do
not attempt to solve the problem, nor does anyone of our correspond
ents. Outside of a few special articles from men who have given the
subject special study, the issue is made up chiefly of actual exper
iences from farm folks who have learned how to sell or to buy to
better advantage.
It will be noticed at once that the two features most stressed in
these experience letters are, (1) the necessity for raising the quality of
product to be sold, and (2) direct marketing of this product to the
consumer, or as close approximation to this direct marketing as is
practical. A third feature might also be noted: Practically all of
these little success stories are of the marketing of what we regard as
minor products. They tell how to handle butter and eggs and vege
tables so as to get more than average prices; but they do not tell how
to sell cotton, or corn, or other staple products to better advantage.
The reason for this is plain enough. The producer cannot carry
his cotton, or hisjpbacco, or his peanuts direct to the consumer, and
A PROFIT-REDUCING ROAD.
If it costs a dollar a bale more than it
should to firet your cotton to town, isn't the
loss as great to you as if the price went
down that much ?
AND CO-OPERATIVE
so eliminate the middleman or get the rewards of
extra quality. This' does not mean- however
that the farmer is helpless in the marketing of
these crops, Individually he may be, but there is
no reason why he should act individually. The
advantages of joining his strength with that of his
fellow farmers so as to be better, able to hold his
own when selling and buying have been long neg
lected, but that is no reason for continuing to neg
lect them. Co-operation, based on sound business
principles and not on unsound sentiment, will en
able the farmer to go into the world's marts, not as
a man with a few bales of cotton or hogsheads of
tobacco to dispose
of , but. as one of
the men who have
for sale the year's
crop of cotton or
tobacco.
-Not until they
learn- this lesson
of united effort
need the farmers
expect to sell to
the greatest prof
it; and they will
learn, it, not by
beginning at the
back of the book
of experience
with big National
organizations ,
but by beginning
with the first page
friendly co-op-
eration with their
nearest neighbors.
FEATURES OF THIS ISSUE.
A PAIR PRICE FOR COTTON The Mississippi Warehouse Plan 5
BUSINESS MARKETING OF FARM PRODUCTS Where Southern
Farmers Have a Chance to Get Retter Prices . : 5
BUYING AND SELLING EXPERIENCES Letters From Readers 6
GETTING THE MONEY OUT OF VEGETABLES From the Home
Gardener's and the Trucker's Point of View . . 11 and 17
NEIGHBORHOOD CO-OPERATION Seven Things Your Commu
nity Could Do 12
OCTOBER IN THE GARDEN What Prof. Massey is Doing Now. . 1
POOR PRICES AND A POOR PRODUCT The Farmer Must Learn
to Supply the Product the Consumer Wants . . . , 3
PROBLEMS OF THE APPLE GROWER How Cold-Storage and
Co-operation Help 17 and 22
SELLING POULTRY AND EGGS Build Up a Direct Market 10
TOBACCO MARKETING By Prof. Mathewson and Mr. Slate 8 and 22
TWO MEN WHO SELL BUTTER How They Make Money at It. . 15
TWO WAYS OF SELLING A HOG A Comparison of Individual
and Co-operative Effort 10