epartment of a cooperative selling association, such as a
fruit exchange. From an educational standpoint there is much to be said
for commencing cooperation through organization for buying agricultural
supplies, for through it farmers are trained in the principles of
cooperation with the greatest possibility of advantage and the least
risk of loss. There is little probability of loss in judicious
cooperative purchases of carload lots with orders in hand, while in
cooperative selling, unless marketing facilities are so bad as to force
him to take the risk, the chance of loss is a serious consideration to
the farmer. This point has been well stated by Edwin A. Pratt, a leader
of agricultural organization in England, who says:

"Inquiry into the conditions under which organization of
agriculture has been successfully carried out in other
countries showed that a beginning had invariably been made
with the simplest form of combination for the joint purchase
of agricultural necessaries. In this way the advantages of
cooperation could be brought home to cultivators, who were
gradually educated in the theory and practice of combination
without having their suspicions aroused and their mutual
distrust stimulated by proposals that they should at once
alter their old conditions of trading in accordance with
that system of combination for transport or sale which
really constitutes not the beginning of agricultural
organization, but one of the most difficult and most
complicated of all its many phases."[30]

One of the allurements of cooperative buying has been to at once
establish a cooperative store for a general merchandising business. The
history of such stores started by granges in the 70's and 80's is
instructive in this connection. A few of them survive, but most of them
were failures. Only after years of experience and education in
cooperative purchasing and other cooperative enterprises have the aims
and methods of operating cooperative stores been sufficiently
appreciated by most rural communities to ensure their successful
establishment. We have already considered (page 48) some of the
considerations which should govern the attempt to compete with local
merchants. Generally the successful operation of a cooperative store is
more difficult for an average group of farmers to manage than the
simpler forms of cooperative purchasing, or coope