Excerpts from the report: This study of the Tobacco Growers' Cooperative Association (the tri-State association) of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina was undertaken at the request of agricultural leaders and business interests of the States in which the association operated and of its receivers. The study was begun in August 1927, as a part of the program of economic research in farmers' cooperative business organizations conducted by the Division of Cooperative Marketing of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. This division has made, and is making, similar studies of cooperative associations handling various farm products, but this is the first business-analysis study which it has made of a cooperative tobacco-marketing association. To enable other cooperators and cooperatives, especially those dealing with tobacco, to benefit by the policies, mistakes, and experiences of this association the economic and social background in Virginia and the Carolinas, the inception of the association, its formation, organic set-up, operations, membership relations and policies, problems, and difficulties are analyzed in considerable detail. Special effort has been made to emphasize the conditions and policies that led to the suspension of operation of the association in June 1926.
