The nonpartisan leader. [volume], August 16, 1917, Image 12

About The nonpartisan leader. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1915-1921

Image provided by: State Historical Society of North Dakota

                
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IFTEEN years ago when
I N I
northern Minnesota was new,
there was but one hand cream
separator in all the country
near Thief River Falls. That
one separator just about guaged the
dairy industry of the region. Very few
cows were being milked, and there was
little demand for milk or butter. A
few farmers were making butter and
selling it at the grocery stores, but
really good butter was so scarce, that
the makers of it had a half a dozen
private customers in town for every
pound they produced.
The cows were nearly all scrubs. The
people who were trying to farm rais
ed a little grain and a good deal of wild
hay, but a silo was regarded as a sort
of frill to farming that was less prac
tical than showy. There was but lit
tle railroad mileage in the country also,
and even when the farmers produced
good crops there was not an available
market.
Conditions were- changed when the
rritchard-Stone company, a firm of
Iowa investors that had started two or
three little banks in the region, de
cided to put punch back of the dairy
industry as a means of building up
their banking business. Mr. Pritchard,
who has always represented the firm
locally is still a resident of Thief River
Falls, and his townsmen and the farm
ers give him credit for having started
the co-operative creamery that is now
the pride of the whole country.
CREAMERY WAS STARTED
TO HELP BANKING
Mr. Pritchard is now engaged in the
lumber business, but he is an ardent
advocate of farmers' co-operative en
terprises, and will take an hour from a
busy morning to talk to anyone who is
genuinely interested in co-operatives,
and in the development of the country.
And he knows the whole history of this
successful business, knows how it could
be increased, and hopes some time that
it will grow into a big institution that
can compete with the Duluth and Twin
City centralizers in a way it can not
compete now.
"To understand the development of
our creamery," he said to the Non
partisan Leader representative the
other day, "you have to know the back
ground of its origin. When we came
in here to make investments first about
1900 there was no such thing as a
creamery thought of. The farmers
were in many instances trying to sell
their land to get out of the country to
newer places. There was no stable
price for land. One could buy "Varans
worth $3500 for $2500, and if he hesi
tated a little about the price, he could
get the farm for $1500. Down in Iowa
where came from, I had helped start
a co-operative creamery and thought
that this country needed something
like that to bring about better farming
methods, and develop the country.
"We had bought several thousand
acres of land and were operating two
small banks. I traveled over the coun
try for about three months looking into
conditions, and finally I put up to our
firm the matter of building a creamery.
We did not want to operate a creamery
ourselves, but we knew we would have
to start it, and we hoped it would be so
successful that the farmers would take
it over. Of course we were in the en
terprise for the sake of building up our
own banking business. But we were
willing to spend a few thousand dollars
if there was a chance to stabilize the
country and bring about permanent
farm prosperity.
SEPARATORS SCARCE AND
MONEY HARD TO GET
"We built the creamery, p"ut a good
and experienced man in charge and
began to buy milk. By the end of the
first week we saw we had made a mis
take. The creamery business was not
wanted by the farmers. They would
not milk their cows. Those who did
could not get to town with cream in the
proper conditio^ for churning. There
were few roads and they were rough.
It was impossible to think of bringing
milk to the creamery for separation
and the only alternative was to have It
separated on the farms. But the
farmers had no separators, and most
discouraging of all, they did not seem
to care to buy any.
"In those days a loan of $20 to
farmer was a big thing, and the farm
er was rare indeed who could borrow
$100. Very little of the land had as
Creamery is Pride
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yet passed to private title so that land
mortgages could not be given as secur
ity, and the only paper banks could get
for loans, were chattel mortgages.
"Cream separators cost $35 to $60
and their purchase represented an in
vestment of some magnitude. But we
had the creamery on hand and we
thought we had to make it a success.
I went to a local hardware dealer, and
told him to order a carload of hand
cream separators. I told him our bank
would take the farmers' paper and fur
nish them the money to pay for them.
We guaranteed him against loss. Then
we sent out men through the country
to sell hand separators to the farmers
and show them the value of separat
ing milk at home.
"We were rather successful after
strenuous effort. But when the sepa
rators came there were only six. The
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hardware man decided it was too big a
venture and did not fill our order.
Then we ordered a carload of separa
tors ourselves of a different make, and
put our#agents out in the country sell
ing them. We sold them for less money
than the other line and we soon began
to get cream of better quality. But it
was uphill work. Not enough farmers
would take an interest to make it prof
itable. We were losing money -fight
along.
CENTRALIZER STUNNED
INFANT LOCAL INDUSTRY
Enterprise Started to Aid Banking Business Proves Great Co-operative
Success in Farmers' Hands
"Those were the days^when butter in
the eastern markets was selling from
17 to 26 cents a pound. We bought
cream on the monthly pay basis, and at
the end of the month the directors
would take the total receipts for the
manufactured butter, determine the
running expenses and decide what rati
we could pay for the butter fat. Often
and often we used to add a cent or
more per pound to the justified price
of butterfat in order to keep the cream
ery alive. If we hadn't we would have
lost our farmer patrons.
"At the end of two years we figured
up the total production and operation
expenses of the creamery and found
that for the 24 months we had been
losing around $125 a month. We talk
ed it over with our butter maker and
he admitted that he knew we were not
getting what we ought to be getting
out of our investment, not getting what
the industry ought to be paying. We
were paying the best prices we could
possibly pay for cream, and yet were
not getting the cream.
"One day we got a tip on the secret
of why we were not getting more
cream. The drayman happened to re
mark to me that he was hauling a good
many cans of cream to the railway
station. One of the big centralizers in
Minneapolis had opened a cream sta
tion some time before. Our competitor,
a local man was getting the cream.
We found out how. He would Bee
farmers bringing their cream to the
creamery, would stop them and ask
what price they were getting. They
would tell him. He would step up on
SS!|S
the wagon, open a can, wipe his fingei
around the inside of the can and take
ofC the thickest, richest cream in the
can and give it a test. Then he would
show a much higher test than the com
posite test shown at the creamery, and
the farmer thought he was getting
cheated. That was how the creamery
lost patrons.
THE FARMERS UNITE
AND TAKE A HAND
"We decided to quit. Our butter
maker had to leave and we nailed up
the doors and windows. We had loet
a lot of money and the farmers did not
seem more than half hearted in their
support. But when the creamery clos
ed down, they began to realize the
situation, and the first thing we knew
they were demanding it be re-opened.
I told them 'Never'."
Farmers making deliveries of cream to the big co-operative creamery at Thief River Falls, Minn., which is now running
night and day, and turning out 60,000 pounds of butter a month.
That was the turning point In the
history of the Thief River Co-operative
Creamery. It didn't stay closed. The
man who had the only hand separator
in the country when the creamery
opened came to the rescue. His name
was Peter Engelstad. He was an en
thusiastic booster for better farming
of the soil. He is also an enthusiastic
booster for less farming of the farmer,
for he is an ardent member of the
Nonpartisan league. Mr. Engelstad got
some neighbors together and formed a
co-operative creamery association.
They knew they could win at dairying
if they could break the strangle bold
of the centralizers, and they cultivated
loyalty among the farmers for their
local creamery.
Under the new management it began
to prosper, and its history of the past
few years has been almost the reverse
of its early history. Last month it did
over $24,000 worth of business, and
shipped about 60,000 pounds of butter.
With present prospects it expects to do
,$150,000 worth of business for the year,
including the slack winter months. If
has about 160 loyal members who never
ship to any outside centralizer, but
keep the profits from their cream to
distribute among themselves. It has
about 500 shippers of cream in north
ern Minnesota and North Dakota and
in spite of strenuous efforts of the
centralizer at Duluth, it is holding its
own with the producers.
FARMERS AND CITY
FOLKS REJOICE TOGETHER
PAGH TWELVE
It is running night and day now with
a crew of 10 persons, and lts_ butter Is
being sold on the Boston market at a
premium of three cents above the regu
lar butter board quotations. Every
year the association holds its annual
meeting in Thief River Falls, and the
farmers are hosts to the, city folks.
They have a big church dinner and
join with their city neighbors in re
joicing over the success of a genuinely
farmer-owned creamery, the largest
and most complete one in northwestern
Minnesota. The town people in their
turn enjoy patronising the farmers'
creamery in a business way, and it
r,*V'
turns out during the^biisy season some*"
thing like 3000 pounds of print butter
a month for the local stores to' sell to
their customers.
The best thing about this creamery
is that it has opened the eyes of tha
farmers to a very profitable form of
farming, and to the fact that they hav«
got to get hold of the marketing end
of their business as well as the pro
ducing end. It is an industry peculiarlj
adapted to the splendid pasture coun«
try of northern Minnesota, and its in
fluence has greatly improved the clasa
of cattle kept, been a stimulus to bet-~
ter road building, and has developed
more on-the-land farmers to take the
place of the absentee speculators,
whom Mr. Pritchard says were a great
handicap to the early development of
the country.
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HOGGING DOWN CORN
Hogging down corn is often acconw
panied by considerable waste, particu
larly when too large an acreage is al
lowed & drove of hogs. Though tha
amount of grain wasted is generally
more than balanced *by the saving in
the labor of husking, special car*
should be taken to make the wastage
as small as possible. An effective way
to do thU is to fence off the field to be
hogged down into lots small enough
that they will be thoroughly cleaned up
in a limited time, and by not changing
the hogs to a new area until the previ
ous one is exhausted.
Because of the help shortage tha
practice of hogging down corn promise*
to be more popular than ever this fall.
To some extent, however, the amount
of corn hogged down will be limited by
the feed shortage, many farmers desir
ing to utilize the stalks who would or*'
dinarily permit them to rot down in
the field. At any rate the scarcity of
feeds makes it imperative for every
farmer to make the best use possibla
Of his crops this year. Not a kernel
of corn or an ounce of grain should go
to waste when it can be saved.
WATER THE HORSE-
In hot weather the horse should be
given special attention. The horsa
when sweating is using up water fast.
If the horse Is worked hard on a real
warm day it should have a liberal suit
ply of good water. From morning till
noon and from noon till evening is A
long time to go without water on a real
hot day, for the horse as well as
tot
man. If water can be carried to tha
field and the horses watered in tha
forenoon and afternoon but especially
in the afternoon, they will be in better
condition to do good work and they
will be less likely to be affected by tha
heat. Care in feeding will also keep
the horse in better condition to resist
the heat. In real hot weather it pays
to give the horses frequent breathing
spells as it is easy to injure the horsa
on a hot day so that its capacity for
work is reduced for weeks.—Agr. Ebb
Dept. N. D. Agr.College.