All the branches of the business, however, have made money.  Over $12,000 in net earnings, after allowing for interest on the investment, have been made since the business started.  Last year the bakery did business to the extent of $135,000, the meat market and grocery $58,000, and the pool room $12,000.  Already the business has outgrown its quarters.  A new oven has been added to the bakery.  The third floor, which was used exclusively as a pool room, has been invaded and the thirteen pool tables rearranged and put closer together so that more room may be had for bakery products.  Adjacent land has been purchased so that the building itself may be added to.  The membership of the Trading Association alone is eighteen hundred and forty.

The employees of the association work among almost ideal conditions.  The twelve bakers are all union men and members of the cooperative association as well.  They work seven and one-half hours a day and are paid from forty-five to fifty dollars per week.  The light, airy bakery is always kept spotless.  Adjacent to it is a commodious room with lockers for each man and two shower baths make it easy to keep clean.  Down on the first floor the retail bakery is so immaculately clean that you would be willing to defy anyone to find one speck of dust in the place.  Every article of food is under shining glass.  The floor is white tiled.  But the food is what attracts one.  The pies swell out as if about to burst.  To look at the bread and rolls makes one hungry and to smell them hungrier still.  This, you are told, is because only the purest ingredients are used.  Many bakers use powdered eggs for baking, commonly imported from China; this cooperative uses only fresh eggs.  They buy a better grade of flour than their competitors do.  The same thing is true of the meat shop next door.  They do not aim to make money on their meat.  Their sole aim is to sell only the best.  This policy has been so popular that the quantity sold the first three months of 1922 was almost treble that for the same months in 1921.  And the meat store, too, has made substantial net earnings.

The two cooperative apartments which lie adjacent to the business block house thirty-two families.  The apartments contain five rooms and bath and are thoroughly modern.  They are light and airy with high ceilings and hardwood floors.  Needless to say their tenant-owners keep them in the most immaculate condition.  Recently a group of business men, several of them builders, went through the buildings and many expressed the wish that they could get similar apartments for three times the money that these cooperators were paying.  For the best apartments the rent has recently been raised to $31.50 per month.  But out of this amount the tenant-owner is not only paying all upkeep but is paying off the mortgage at the rate of $1,000 per year.  Similar apartments in the locality rent from $75 to $80 per month.  The tenant-owners, of course, run their apartments on the cooperative plan of one vote per member.