ALBERT ]J. MANN 
 LIBRARY 
 
 New York State Colleges 
 
 OF 
 
 Agriculture and Home Economics 
 
 AT 
 
 Cornell University 
 
Cornell University Library 
 HD 1483.W8 
 
 Co-operation in agriculture 
 
 3 1924 013 998 293 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013998293 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
CO-OPERATION IN 
 AGRICULTURE 
 
 HENRY W. WOLFF, 
 
 Late Chairman of the International Co-operative Alliance, 
 
 and u Member of the Executive of the Agricultural Organisation 
 
 Society from its formation till 1912. 
 
 SECOND IMPRESSION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 P. S. KING & SON, 
 
 ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER. 
 
 1914. 
 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO 
 
 The Right Hon. Sir Horace C. Plunkett, K.C.V.O., 
 
 WHO, 
 AS A devoted and JUDICIOUS 
 
 Pioneer of Co-operation in Agriculture in the 
 United Kingdom, 
 
 HAS conferred A SIGNAL BENEFIT UPON HIS COUNTRY 
 and set a BRILLIANT EXAMPLE, 
 
 by which it may be hoped that agriculturists in 
 
 England, Scotland and Wales 
 
 will not be slow to profit. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface 
 
 I Introduction . . 
 
 II. General Principles 
 
 TIL Co-operative Supply of Goods 
 
 IV. Disposal of Produce — General Rematks 
 
 V. Disposal of Milk 
 
 VI. Disposal of Eggs and Poultry 
 
 VI: . Disposal of Grain 
 
 VIII, Disposal of Live Stock 
 
 IX. Disposal of Other Produce 
 
 X. Live Stock Improvement 
 
 XL Co-operative Insurance 
 
 XII. Co-operative Credit 
 
 XIII. Co-operation for Common Work, Common Use 
 
 Machinery, and Obtainment of Power 
 
 XIV. Co-operation in the Tenure of Land 
 XV. Education 
 
 X\'I. " Forced " Co-operation 
 
 XVII. Conclusion 
 
 of 
 
 PAGB 
 
 ix 
 
 I 
 
 i6 
 
 38 
 
 55 
 
 68 
 
 105 
 
 124 
 
 146 
 
 170 
 
 199 
 
 223 
 
 251 
 
 274 
 303 
 329 
 347 
 ,361 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In 1895 the author tried to call attention, in an 
 article entitled " Co-operation in Agriculture," which 
 appeared in the October number of the Contemporary 
 Review, to the advantages to be secured by the appUcation 
 of co-operative methods to Agriculture— the introduction 
 and extension of which he has witnessed in more countries 
 than one from their very beginning. 
 
 Since that time Co-operation in Agriculture has made 
 great strides indeed abroad. In England its progress has 
 been much less rapid. But with the coming into force 
 of the Small Holdings Act the conviction has been brought 
 home to many that it must be taken up. 
 
 Under such circumstances a book reviewing the 
 various applications given to Co-operation in Agriculture, 
 by the light of the small beginnings that, under the in- 
 spiration of the Agricultural Organisation Society (of the 
 Executive Committee of which the author has been a 
 member since the time of its formation) and otherwise, 
 have been made in this country, and of the much wider 
 experience gathered abroad, may appear not out of place. 
 
 The present book does not pretend to be an exhaustive 
 Encyclopaedia on its subject, or to lay down formulated 
 rules and directions to be followed ; much less does it 
 pretend to deal with purely technical questions, of dairjdng, 
 poultry keeping, and so on. Its object is simply to give 
 a general outluie of what has been accomplfehed, with 
 the addition of such suggestions for the adoption of co- 
 operative methods as occasion may appear to call for. 
 
 Having been for a considerable time Chairman of 
 the International Co-operative AUiance, and in constant 
 close contact more particularly with the Unions and 
 Federations of Agricultural Co-operative Societies, abroad 
 and at home, the author, who has been described as 
 " le cooperateur le plus repandu," may be thought not to 
 be presuming too much in offering such a conspectus. 
 
 H. W. W. 
 
 August, 1912. 
 
I.— INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Co-operation applied to Agriculture has become a 
 familiar institution and a great economic power almost 
 all over the Continent, to the admitted material benefit 
 of the countries in which it has found a home. Accord- 
 ingly we now see there not only agriculturists of all grades 
 eager to employ it, but also foreign Governments sparing 
 no pains to remove hindrances out of its way and extend 
 its apphcation. It has been found to put fresh heart 
 into Agriculture where dechning and to carry remunera- 
 tive cultivation into previously neglected parts. In land 
 settlement it has been ascertained to constitute a most 
 valuable, it may be said an indispensable, aid. In con- 
 sequence, wherever it has gained a footing, new settlements 
 are advisedly set up, no longer in isolation, but in clusters 
 of holdings, in order that the settlers may enjoy the ad- 
 vantages of being able to co-operate for the greatest 
 variety of purposes from the very outset. In Germany 
 and Austria agricultural co-operative societies have become 
 so numerous as almost to jostle one another. In Germany 
 alone there are at the present time more than 26,000 of 
 them, formed for a truly astonishing variety of purposes, 
 ministering to almost every distinct want of Agriculture — 
 buying, selling, providing power, converting produce 
 into more marketable shape, pressing grapes, distilling _ 
 potatoes, drying roots for longer preservation, storing 
 grain, improving breeds of live stock, insuring farmers', 
 property against admost every variety of risk and, last 
 not least, furnishing plentifully money wherewith to 
 stock and improve farms, buy for cash and launch out 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 into large and new prohtable operations. In Italy 
 agricultural co-operators have advanced so far as suc- 
 cessfully and economically to manufacture their own 
 superphosphates, triumphantly breaking up a makers' 
 ring. In Switzerland, on the one hand, Agricultural 
 Co-operation very usefully supplies its members not only 
 with agricultural but also with domestic requisites — ^to 
 the considerable saving of their pockets ; and on the 
 other, through the excellent live stock improvement 
 societies organised by Herr von Wattenwiel, it enables 
 the small peasantry to dispose of their young beasts as 
 pedigree stock at five times the prices that such used to 
 fetch. What one hears from the United States almost 
 takes away one's breath by its truly American bigness, — • 
 if one could only rely upon its being truly " co-operative." 
 More than half the United States' Agriculture, as re- 
 presented in all by about 6,io_o,ooo acres, is reported to 
 be more or less governed by Cb-bperafioh. The Farmers' 
 Educational and Co-operative Union alone, a compara- 
 tively new organisation, with, as is claimed, about two 
 millions of members, possesses — according to a public 
 statement made by its President in May, 191 1 — 1628 
 warehouses mainly for storing cotton, an unspecified large 
 number of elevators and terminal agencies for the handling 
 of grain, 245 packing houses, dozens of newspapers, coal 
 mines, several banks, flourmills, creameries, pickle factories, 
 several hundred stores, an implement factory, a super- 
 phosphate plant, a phosphate mine, tobacco factories 
 and warehouses, produce exchanges, fertiliser factories, 
 peanut warehouses, a peanut reclear, many cotton grading 
 schools, co-operative life and fire insurance companies. 
 Unfortunately one cannot tell to what extent this enormous 
 array of establishments accords with our canons of Co- 
 operation. France professes -to possess over 38,000 
 agricultural co-operative societies, all of which, it is true, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 cannot rank as fully " co-operative " in our sense, but 
 all of which have their recognised utility. In any case 
 Co-operation effectively covers the ground, and those 
 who have recourse to it are the better for it. 
 
 That is, indeed, the result to be observed throughout. 
 The rural portion of the countries affected by Agricultural 
 Co-operation has been transformed and raised to higher 
 productive efficiency. The agricultural classes and the 
 entire country have grown the richer. And the men 
 practising such co-operation have been transmuted as 
 well. There is remarkable educating power in Co-op- 
 eration, which makes men think, calculate, study, and 
 which trains them for business. It quickens the march 
 of civilisation, while hastening the growth of population. 
 It sharpens wits and awakens intelhgence. We notice 
 the result already in India, where Co-operation has struck 
 root only within the last few years. Those who practise 
 it already cry out for more education, more technical 
 instruction, better seeds, better implements, better ferti- 
 lisers, better methods of husbandry. We notice it to a 
 very much larger extent in European countries. What 
 is the Agriculture of Germany to-day, with its" intensive " 
 cxilture, its remunerative " industrial " crops, its per- 
 fected rotations, its variety of applications ? Fifty 
 years ago German Agriculture lagged miles behind our 
 •own. The burden of the two Stockhardts' and of 
 Hartstein's teaching was : Do like the English and the 
 Scotch ! Now, barring live stock breeding — in which 
 we still excel — German Agriculture is undoubtedly ahead 
 ■of ours. Our own once envied Agriculture has remained, 
 like the stump of King Nebuchadnezzar's dream tree, 
 with its glory gone — though there is life and vigour 
 still within it, which may, if we wiU only do as our whilom 
 pupils have done, bring it back to its first pre-eminence. 
 But for the moment German Agriculture leads. There 
 
4 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 is more variety in it than in ours, more adaptation to 
 varying circumstances, more thought for the production 
 of money and for the cultivation of the ager. It is Co- 
 operation which has brought about this remarkable change 
 — making men think, placiag the use of business skill and 
 technical knowledge within the reach of the humblest 
 among them, providing stimulating contact — ^which has 
 acted, in King Solomon's words, like "steel upon steel " — 
 and creating opportunities for turning all such advantages 
 to account. 
 
 And what, so it may be asked, was it that led people 
 abroad to such useful form of combination ? In the first 
 instance it was necessity, such as in Alfred de Musset's 
 words, drove our ancestors to " bow to the sanctifying 
 baptism with the dew of labour [le saint hapteme de la 
 sueur) " and made our first parents delve the ground. 
 Delving by itself had become unprofitable. The " three 
 livings " which thirty-seven years ago Lord Beaconsfield 
 still thought that he could detect emerging automatically 
 from Mother Earth, refused any longer to spring up. 
 Even the one living that might be considered to have been 
 left became grudging and chary. There was no help for 
 it but to economise outlay by joining forces together and 
 acting in that union which according to the Belgian 
 national motto " creates power." It was not a question 
 between large farmers and small. In his competition 
 with an overmastering world even the largest farmer saw 
 his power dwindling to insignificance, and, to be able to 
 meet his rivals, he discovered that he must arm himself 
 more effectively and rely upon co-operation with others. 
 For the small farmer the matter presented itself as a 
 question of economic life and death. Government favours 
 inalienable " homestead " farms, cheap railway rates — 
 all proved of no avail without Co-operation. So the 
 seed came to be planted. And its own utility developed 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 the tiny shoot into a great tree, in whose ample shade, 
 as in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, all animate creation may 
 find a grateful refuge. 
 
 We in England have remained strangely backward 
 in this matter — to our loss. " Strangely " one may well 
 say, in view not only of the mass of foreign evidence 
 accumulating during forty or fifty years, as if for our 
 special benefit, telling only one tale ; but also of the truly 
 magnificent success of industrial Co-operation, in which, 
 as erst in Agriculture, we lead the world by a long way. 
 The figures recording such success appear to foreigners 
 almost incredible. Surely to our eyes they ought to have 
 demonstrated the remarkable potency of the principle 
 of Co-operation ! Our milHons of men — mostly working 
 men — building up out of their few shillings originally 
 saved from labour, by their mere circumscribed custom, in- 
 stitutions which rank as the largest traders in the kingdom, 
 cheapening goods, improving their quality, making trade 
 honest so far as their power reaches, and greatly raising 
 the educational, intellectual and business status of their 
 class — all this should have taught us a lesson which, so 
 one would have thought, our agricultural clcisses, always 
 complaining of hard times, would have been quick to take 
 to heart. Nothing of the kind ! We have gone on pre- 
 cisely in the same old humdrum way — complaining, like 
 the Jews at the Red Sea, when our duty was to " go 
 forward," but not seeking to remedy what was amiss. 
 It looked as if farmers thought that there was something 
 derogatory and degrading in Co-operation. Or else they 
 dreaded " Sociahsm," of which Co-operation is in truth 
 the antipodes. Gregariousness and readiness to act in 
 concert have indeed never been a leading feature in 
 the character of our rural population'. And in justice 
 be it said, it has taken even those whom we now look up to 
 as our models in the matter long enough to buckle to Co- 
 
6 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 operation. In all countries farmers are difficult to move. 
 Belpjian and Italian ministers have long openly bewailed 
 the distrust for co-operative practices which was clearly 
 observable among their peasantry. It has taken a long 
 time even to rouse German farmers, now the largest 
 agricultural oo-operators in the world — for the quality 
 of United States Co-operation is questionable — to an 
 appreciation of the new method. In France, chosen 
 home that it is of biureaucracy and of doles, it has needed 
 much Government prodding and many Government bene- 
 factions to produce an Agricultural Co-operative Move- 
 ment. The very Danes, who are set up as models in the 
 matter for all the world, have — so M. Andreas Nielsen 
 shows in an official Report prepared for the International 
 Congress of Brussels in 1910* — taken to Co-operation 
 only because they felt that they must, and in the precise 
 degree in which necessity compelled them. Step by 'tep 
 they have advanced, not in any case from a conception 
 of conjectural advantage to be gained, but only as necessity 
 urged them. Dairying first, in the place of corn growing, 
 pig rearing, slaughtering, baoon curing, egg raising — every 
 new departure was forced upon them by a Diomedean 
 necessity, by reason of some obstacle obstructing the 
 course of accustomed business. The national humiliation 
 of 1864 supplied the first impulse. It is remarkable how 
 instinctively nations, of whatever race, turn to Agricultural 
 Co-operation in similar distress. The Gothic Danes, 
 the Turanian Finns, the Slav Poles — all have under humi- 
 liation or oppression sought, and found, relief in Agricul- 
 tural Co operation. The Danes rightly thought first of 
 their education and that patriotic drawing together in 
 a spirit of brotherhood for the national good which led 
 one of their authorities in the renowned " High Schools " 
 
 * " La Coqp^ation dans 1' Agriculture en Dancmark." Published by the 
 Royal Statistical Department at Copenhagen. 
 
INTRODUCTION. j 
 
 to refuse a brilliant appointment in one of our Colonies 
 to teach his lesson there. " It could not do my own country 
 any good, and it might conceivably raise up competition 
 to it. ' ' Under the guidance of Bishop Grundtvig, Schroder, 
 Dr. Novregard, Jestrup and Fjord, the Danes organised 
 their " High Schools," which do not teach " words," as 
 Lord Beaconsfield made his early hero, Contarini Fleming, 
 say with contempt, but form character and lay the founda- 
 tion for wider knowledge — establishments which were 
 soon to be followed up by agricultural technical colleges. 
 The first Co-operative Store was formed at Thisted, in 
 1866. But Agricultural Co-operation, now the distinctive 
 glory of Danish Co-operation, did not follow until 1882, 
 after Germany, turned suddenly protectionist under 
 Bismarck's new policy of 1879, had refused to Danish corn ' 
 admission to its accustomed market. Thus under \ 
 necessity Denmark became from a corngrowing a cattle " 
 — later also, on similar provocation, a pig and poultry^— 
 raising country. And the necessity of disposing, first 
 of its butter, then of its bacon and last of its eggs, drove 
 it perforce into the arms of Co-operation. 
 
 It is — so it may be interesting to notice by the way 
 — such piecemeal taking up of Co-operation — just so much 
 as circumstances called for at the moment — which has 
 impressed upon Danish Agricultural Co-operation its own 
 quite peculiar stamp, the dividing up of the work into so 
 many self-contained departments — the sale of eggs, the 
 purchase of farming requisites, bacon curing, dairying 
 and so on — that it is not unusual to find one small peasant 
 a member of nine or ten different societies, to discharge 
 for him so many distinct functions. There is some ad- 
 vantage in this, no doubt. But it suits only few cases. 
 It requires, among other things, a highly educated member- 
 ship to man all the committees. It is likely to mean the 
 forgoing of the use of " power " — where suoh is em- 
 
« CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 ployed — and of opportunities. Raiffeisen, beginning at 
 the opposite end of the problem, having an impoverished 
 peasantry to deal with, only sparingly equipped with busi- 
 ness knowledge, and planning Co-operation under a much 
 wider aspect, of necessity proceeded on reversed lines : — 
 he would form one society only in every village, to satisfy 
 all the requirements of the population : credit, common 
 purchase, common sale, common conversion of produce 
 into more marketable shape, and whatever other service the 
 prospect of further advantage might suggest, leading 
 rather than following necessity, going in advance of com- 
 pelling need, and meeting it half way. Under conditions 
 different from those that Raiffeisen had to deal with, such 
 blending of everything may no doubt be open to objection. 
 But within the limits of those conditions — and that 
 appears to be in the main our case — his system has proved 
 every bit as successful as the Danish. And even where 
 all such conditions are not satisfied it must be obvious 
 that a combination of services is likely to prove advantage- 
 ous. The society which buys may also sell. The" power " 
 which moves the dairy machinery by day may well light 
 up the village by night. The oart which fetches milk or 
 carries butter may also bring home goods. 
 
 By the adoption of these different views it has come 
 about that there are distinct varieties of Agricultural 
 Co-operation, among which new practitioners will have 
 to choose. We have lately given all our attention to 
 Co-operation as practised in Denmark. But it will be 
 well if, instead of studying the system of one particular 
 country only, however successful it may have proved in 
 its own circumstances, and then blindly following it, we 
 accept the apostolic precept of " proving all things and 
 hplding fast that which is good. " There are other systems 
 which are likely to suit our own case at least equally well. 
 And we may in t'-is country secure the very same ad- 
 
INTRODUCTION. g. 
 
 vantages which in Denmark division into a number of 
 distinct organisations ensures by the distribution of 
 business to be transacted in one society among a number 
 of committees, whose members will soon become to the 
 requisite degree experts in their own particular branch. 
 This seems more in keeping with our national idiosjm- 
 crasies than separation. 
 
 It is not without interest to pursue the onward march 
 of Agricultural Co-operation across Europe. 
 
 Grafting Danish example upon the system of Co- 
 operation which Schulze (being a faithful pupil of Roch- 
 dale) and Raiffeisen had taught them, the Germans soon 
 took a decided lead. Beginning modestly with some 
 strugghng supply societies formed by Herr Haas in his 
 native grandduchy of Hesse, their Co-operation soon 
 spread out — all the more that Governments, rather free- 
 handedly than judiciously, stimulated the propaganda. 
 The consequence is that, though there has been magnificent i 
 growth, all within is not as one would desire to see it. • 
 However, Governments lent assistance also where they - 
 might legitimately be expected to do so, that is, by^ 
 education ; and once more it is the schoolmaster who has' 
 helped to win the agricultural " Sadowa." And from " 
 Knowledge " has sprung " Power " in the shape of a 
 magnificent co-operative movement. 
 
 In France it was the " Agricultural Syndicates " — an 
 unlocked for product of what was really intended as a 
 Trade Union law of 1884 — which, though not themselves 
 co-operative societies in the fullest sense of the word, 
 have contributed most largely to the extension of practical 
 Co-operation. France would not be France if the State 
 had not claimed to put its own gilded finger into the pie 
 — lavishing "subventions," but at the same time also 
 rendering excellent services in other ways — as, for instance, 
 by the appointment of its most meritorious "depart- 
 
•lo CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE 
 
 mental professors," who teach and practically point the 
 rway with admirable effect. Under the propulsion of such 
 ■ stimulating influences a mighty host of co-operative 
 [ organisations has grown up, which is variously estimated 
 , at from 20,000 to 38,000, according to what you choose 
 to include. For the co-operative element is not every- 
 where equally predominant. 
 
 Switzerland, having begun in its own local way by 
 the time honoured fruitieres or " cheeseries," and later by 
 Hve stock improvement societies, in the nineties developed 
 Agricultural Co-operation on its own modernised hnes, carry- 
 ing it in remarkably short time to great power and extensive- 
 ness by combining distribution of household requisites 
 with purely agricultural supply. In Eastern Switzerland 
 the combination of these two services has proved a 
 remarkable help to the spread and intensification of 
 Co-operation, as those can tell who have witnessed the 
 humble beginnings of the Eastern Swiss Society — now 
 housed in a palatial building — in that little shed near the 
 railway station at Winterthur. 
 
 Italy ambitiously claims to have been in the field 
 before either France or Germany, there being the forma- 
 tion of a co-operative society for the common purchase 
 of silkworms on record in Friul as early as in 1855. There 
 was not, however, an organised movement until much 
 later. In Italy it is more specifically the public-spirited 
 great Savings Banks, not harnessed to a Treasury chariot, 
 like ours, which, turning the profits earned in their 
 full freedom to account, have acted as fruitful generators 
 of Co-operation by means of the cattedre amlulanti and 
 otherwise. That surely has done more good to the nation 
 than our studied " appreciation " of Consols locked up 
 in the Old Jewry. Even in the eighties co-operative 
 societies sprang up only sporadically, and by 1892 there 
 were only eighteen specifically agricultural societies ready 
 
INTRODUCTION. ii 
 
 to join the Federazione of Piacenza. which has since grown 
 powerful and shown itself full of resource. It was only 
 later that the State interfered with gifts, which, generally 
 speaking, fail to produce the desired effect. However, 
 the prevailing Socialist wave swaying the rural population 
 has served to introduce a distinctively democratic spirit, 
 emphasising the point that this is a movement, in the 
 first instance, for the small farmers, and ripening 
 sooner than elsewhere, on something like a perceptible 
 scale, the seed of co-operative service for the purpose of 
 land settlement. The Itahan afflttanze are the pioneers 
 of modem co-operative land-renting as practised in our 
 Co-operative Allotment Societies. 
 
 Thus the impetus originally given, in its modern form, 
 in Denmark, has kept extending in all directions. Austria , 
 stepped in with State aid, more ample in proportion to' 
 its size — as one of its departmental officers has openly" 
 boasted — than in any other country. It now numbers 
 about 11,500 purely agricultural co-operative societies. 
 Hungary has proceeded, with teUing effect, upon similar 
 lines, and now boasts about 5,000 societies of the kind 
 indicated. Servia, Bulgaria, and Roumania followed suit. 
 Servia has now about 1,000 societies, Bulgaria — having 
 begun only about ten years ago — 700, Roumania boasts 
 over 3,000. The Netherlands developed more particularly 
 a highly perfected form of Dairy Co-operation well deserv- 
 ing of our study. The total number of their agricultural 
 co-operative societies of every sort now stands at more 
 than 3,000. In Belgium the sustained efforts of the 
 Boerenbond have produced a promising movement. There 
 it is that, at Herzele, people have foiind out that Co- 
 operation has benefited them to the extent of £3 i8s. 
 an acre. The total number of its agricultural co-operative 
 societies is now given as close upon 4,000. Little; 
 Luxemburg, with scarcely a large town's population. 
 
12 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 has about 600 such societies to show — ^very much coddled 
 by the State. Even Spain and Portugal have ahready 
 some firstling results to present. Spain has about 1,160 
 societies. Then there is Sweden with some 3,000 societies, 
 Norway with 700 dairies alone, and Russia — excluding 
 a large number of societies improperly called " co-opera- 
 tive " — according to Professor Anziferoff, with about 
 7,500 — not counting Finland, which by itself possesses 
 about 2,000. Thus the best part of the Continent has 
 come to be overspread with Agricultural Co-operation, 
 holding up to ourselves the light of stimulating example. 
 
 It would be but lost labour to reckon up here the full 
 force to which Co-operation in Agriculture has grown, and 
 the value of the precious gifts which it has conferred on 
 husbandry, simply because every month sees the roU of 
 societies lengthened, the number of their members and 
 the volume of their resources and operations increased. 
 The reckoning would be out of date almost before the 
 sheets on which it has to be printed could be dry. Agricul- 
 tural co-operative societies number by thousands, in 
 Germany by tens of thousands ; and Agricultural Co- 
 operation has become a power to be seriously reckoned 
 with in the markets of the countries in which it has struck 
 root, a powerful reserve force in emergencies, to uphold 
 the tiUers of the soil, a steady pillar in ordinary times, 
 dreaded and opposed in some commercial quarters, but 
 generally appreciated. 
 
 If we in Great Britain have long hung back in the 
 adoption of Agricultural Co-operation, time has at length 
 stepped in to vindicate its claims. With " 750,000 small 
 holders and allotment holders " in the field we can hang 
 back no longer. Large farmers may scrape along as they 
 think best, but observation and experience tell us that 
 without the assistance of Co-operation our pet project of 
 social reform in rural districts must prove a failure. We 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 have had our own little beginnings in Co-operation in 
 Agriculture, so it is true, on very humdrum lines— indeed, 
 before our neighbours, now so much ahead of us in the 
 matter, turned their thoughts to it. 
 
 Forty years ago we had nine or ten co-operative 
 county societies — some of which still survive — formed 
 to supply their members with cheaper and better super- 
 phosphates. And in their small way thousands of small 
 farmers had also joined together in unregistered societies 
 to provide for the same want. There is no occasion here 
 to recall Ralahine, Orbiston, Radboume, the early 
 Assingtons, and so on, any more than there is to talk 
 of the extinct or decaying institutions of communautes, 
 comunanze, watagas, drou]inas,_ zadriigas. Those were 
 attempts at realising communistic dreams. In substance 
 such unpractical collectivism has been abandoned — at any 
 rate on this side of the Atlantic — as economically unsound 
 and not enduringly practicable. And even among 
 Roumani2Ln obstei and Itahan affittanze — representing 
 co-operative hiring of land, as distinguished from collective 
 ownership — independent cultivation of separate holdings 
 now decidedly predominates over collective. But if we 
 had gone on developing our agricultural co-operative 
 supply, we might by this time have arrived at something 
 worth possessing for agriculture. Although common 
 purchase is not by any means everything in Co-operation, 
 certainly it stands for a great deal. Unfortunately, the 
 efforts then ventured upon do not appear to have been 
 continued. The reason possibly is the same which made 
 my own endeavour in 1883 to form a farmers' co-operative 
 supply society in East Sussex fail, although everyone 
 present, at a very representative and weU-attended gather- 
 ing of landlords and tenants, assented to the principle. 
 The farmers assenting were — so it turned out — on their 
 dealers' books and accordingly not free agents. The 
 
14 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 lesson to be gathered from this is that which Sir Horace 
 Plunkett has rightJy drawn in Ireland, when he said that 
 if he had his work of organisation to do over againj it is 
 with Co-operative Credit that he would begin. The power 
 to command money was what was wanted, and that led 
 me to devote myself more specifically to the cause of 
 Co-operative Credit. 
 
 A brighter day dawned, for Ireland, when Sir Horace 
 Plunkett there took up the cause of Agricultural Co- 
 operation in 1894. Unlike our English " organisers " he 
 did not despise foreign example. He was not ashamed 
 — ^nay, he showed himself eager — to learn from the Danes, 
 and later from the Dutch. Those practical examples are 
 the models upon which — ^with judicious adaptations, such 
 as there must be — Irish Agricultural Co-operation has been 
 generally moulded. And practically applied, it has proved 
 a godsend to Ireland, a success to which, on witnessing 
 its results, our late Sovereign has paid ready testimony. 
 
 The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, formed 
 and ably led by Sir Horace Plunkett — who has with rare 
 tact managed to unite in it all distinct elements, political, 
 social and religious, of his country, except the gombeen- 
 men in money or goods — can to-day make it its boast that 
 in its poor country it has organised close upon a thousand 
 co-operative societies, for the benefit of Irish Agriculture, 
 with about 95,000 members, almost exclusively practical 
 farmers, and doing an annual trade of nearly ;f3,ooo,ooo 
 — of which nearly £2,000,000 is in co-operatively-made 
 butter — telling up in the past to about £25,000,000 in all. 
 Every one connected with that co-operative practice is 
 the better for it, as there is no lack of willing evidence 
 to show. And, surely, the country as a whole is a gainer 
 — let alone that what is after all only a beginning contains 
 a promise of rich benefit for the future, the secret of 
 success having been discovered. Thus to the quick- 
 
INTRODUCTIOW 15 
 
 witted Irishmen Competition, like Achilles' spear, has 
 brought with it a ready cure for the very wounds that it 
 had first struck by letting loose co-operative butter, eggs 
 and bacon, cheaper in price and better in quaHty than 
 our own, seemingly without limits, upon our coasts. The 
 Irish have learnt how to fight the aggressor with his own 
 weapons. And if the Department of Agriculture — which, 
 as a pubhc authority, cannot possibly " co-operate " — 
 will but take Talleyrand's advice and abstain from trop 
 de zele and leave Co-operation alone without handicap- 
 ping it with its irritating interference, the Irish Agricul- 
 tural Organisation Society may be trusted, by means of 
 Agricultural Co-operation, to raise its country to great 
 prosperity. There is every promise of this. 
 
 With such examples to urge us on our way one may 
 hope that we, too, on this side of St. George's Channel, 
 shall before long take our place otherwise than experi- 
 mentally, in the phalanx of countries practising Co-opera- 
 ion in Agriculture on something like a national scale and, 
 beckoning us on by results which may be briefly summed 
 up in the words of the Principal of one of Belgium's dairy 
 schools, spoken with regard to her own country : — " What 
 striking contrast, when one compares the progress realised 
 where agricultural societies flourish. The yield of fields 
 has considerably increased ; live stock breeding, sales for 
 the meat market, and sales of draught horses now figure 
 in foremost rank ; they have raised farms already aban- 
 doned once more to prosperity and brought back to the 
 hearths of the countrymen the comforts which had dis- 
 appeared." What a promise for our deserted countryside 
 which we are now hoping to repeople with ' a bold 
 peasantry, their country's pride." 
 
i6 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE- 
 
 II.— GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 Opinions upon what Co-operation may accomplish 
 in Agriculture, what should be its guiding principles, 
 and what are its limits, do not appear in this country 
 to be quite as much in unison and quite as clear as might 
 be desired, if there is to be concerted action widely sup- 
 ported, such as alone can ensure complete success 
 
 There are people who look to Co-operation for very 
 much more than it can possibly yield. On the other hand 
 there are people who in ignorance unduly behttle its power. 
 On the whole, however, Co-operation — ^which was once 
 ranked as an alias of SociaUsm — is now generally behaved 
 in. But just as in industrial Co-operation the late G. J. 
 Holyoake found reason to complain that there were 
 " thousands of members of co-operative societies to one 
 genuine co-operator," so it may to-day be averred that, 
 in respect to Co-operation applied to Agriculture, there 
 are infinitely more advocates and avowed partisans of 
 Co-operation than there are persons acquainted with 
 its principles. On no ground is there more counterfeit 
 Co-operation to be met with than on Agricultural. 
 
 " There is considerable confusion in this country, 
 not merely in the minds of the general public, but in the 
 trained minds of university professors," so wrote to me 
 not long ago a high authority in the United States Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture, " as to what economic co-operation 
 is. What is the definition that will place this organisation 
 in the class of those that are engaged in economic co- 
 operation and will place that organisation outside ? You 
 will confer a favour upon this Department if you will 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 17 
 
 communicate your formula which will establish a test 
 for including and excluding as associations co-ope^ati^'e 
 or not." 
 
 Ah, that is the difficulty ! It is not at all a question 
 of formula. We have had mechanical rules laid down in 
 plenty. " Combination of persons, not of capitals " — J 
 therefore "one man one vote" as an immutable rule. " No 
 dividend upon share capital beyond the accepted market'-! 
 rate for money.'' " Unlimited membership " — the society 
 steadily kept open to newcomers, to prevent its degen- 
 erating into a ring, like the French lunetiers. All these 
 are capital rules. But they apply only to externals. 
 There is a kernel beneath, which is not governed by 
 positive precepts, but which on the contrary ought to 
 govern them. The rules quoted do not bar out abuses — 
 grave abuses, such as unfortunately in only too many 
 co-operative organisations we have seen creep in. These 
 rules do not shut out that bane of British industrial Co- 
 operation, " dividend hunger." They do not close the 
 door against John Bunyan's dangerous friend " Mr. By- 
 ends," who is in Co-operation at the present time more 
 rampant and more mischievous than ever — in part because, 
 as M. Luzzatti once said of his banks, " we have succeeded 
 loo well." They do not pronounce an effective ban upon 
 that corrupting "patronage" Co-operation — which insists 
 upon the form of Co-operation, but couples it with the 
 worst practice of oligarchy ; upon "-Demagogue Co-opera- 
 tion," which uses Co-operation as a tool for politics : upon 
 '" Cupboard Co-operation," which makes Co-operation 
 a pretext for the receipt of doles out of the taxpayers' 
 pocket; upon " Denominational Co-operation," which 
 moves societies hke pawns in the game for the reconquest of 
 ecclesiastical power. These things are crying evils in the 
 present day. We cannot, as the present Postmaster 
 
i8 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 General once remarked to the co-operative enthusiast 
 Dr. Solly. " put co-operative spirit into the rules." But 
 it should be in the society. 
 
 Even such abuses apart as those here enumerated, 
 people appear very little clear in their minds as to what 
 practical Co-operation should be based upon, what it 
 can attempt, what it should avoid, what decalogue should 
 govern it in the matter of practice. 
 
 Under such circumstances it appears that a few pages 
 may well be devoted to a brief consideration of the con- 
 ditions which either invite or else repel Co-operation ; 
 of the principles upon which it ought to be built up ; and 
 of the limits existing to its fruitful action. For limits 
 undoubtedly there are. Co-operation is not by any means 
 the unfailing "accomplish- all " and " cure-all " for which 
 fertile brains have sometimes been pleased to give it out, 
 but a simple economic instrument, exceedingly useful 
 in appropriate circumstances, for a great variety of pur- 
 poses, but on the other hand wholly ineffective under 
 other conditions. Co-operation has no magic in it. It 
 is just a simple junction of forces among a number of 
 persons more or less similarly situated, and having a com- 
 mon object in view, for attaining that object. Its aim 
 is not directly to make individuals rich. It gables them to 
 make themselves so by removing obstacles and creating 
 facilities for individual effort. That is, economically speak- 
 ing, the limit of its utihty. It cannot create wealth out 
 of nothing. Wherever two shoulders placed against a 
 wheel oan make that wheel move faster, or further, 
 or more smoothly than each shoulder pushing by itself, 
 wherever ten sovereigns laid out in common will pur- 
 chase more than the same ten gold pieces expended 
 separately, it may be relied upon to vindicate its 
 efficacy. Beyond this it will, as already shown, stimu- 
 late intellect, detect new openings for successful enter- 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 19 
 
 prise, and teach the value of mutual consideration 
 and nfiutual help. But it will not serve purely selfish 
 . or gain-seeking ends. It offers a means for profitably 
 uniting forces for the avoidance of unnecessary expense, 
 for the obtainment of better value for produce, for the 
 withstanding of persecution and oppression. It will 
 break up rings, cheapen purchases, facilitate sales, create 
 and steady markets, render practicable work of sundry 
 kinds, which is not otherwise possible for individuals. 
 Within certain limits it may do away with the middleman 
 and abolish the unnecessary toll levied by him upon com- 
 modities on their passage to the consumer. It cannot 
 exploit others. It is not " business," but common work. 
 It aims not at profit, but at rendering a common service. 
 Wherever more is aimed at, wherever speculative 
 gain is kept in view, or masteship over others is aimed 
 at, in the place of attainment of equality, or else where 
 there is essential inequality among those who propose to 
 practise it, it is out of place. Instances of such kind 
 will be quoted. 
 
 Now, in the pursuit of Agriculture, happily, there is 
 a wide field open in which conditions favourable to the 
 employment of Co-operation predominate, and in which, 
 consequently, rightly apphed. Co-operation may be ex- 
 pected to do great good. However, of course, the success- 
 ful rearing of the fabric presupposes more than the mere 
 existence of a favourable building ground. II ne suffit 
 pas, so Leon Say has laid it down, d avoir une bonne 
 machine ; il faut aussi avoir uii bon mkanicien. There must 
 be a sound plan and good workmanship as well. 
 
 The caveat recorded against the study of " profit '' 
 should not be misunderstood. 
 
 Co-operation professes very lofty aims. It is to 
 extend education, raise moral tone, create a bond of identi- 
 cal interests uniting men with men. But Co-operation 
 
.20 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 with all its higher aspirations can never be expected to 
 appeal for active support unless it offers some distinct 
 and direct material benefit. It is distinctly the prospect . 
 •of such which has secured its remarkable success among 
 what unquestionably is to-day, agriculturally speaking, 
 the most co-operative nation in Europe, that is, the Danish, 
 and the plea raised in its favour in the United Kingdom 
 unmistakably is that it will, rightly applied, improve the 
 material condition of those husbandmen who may agree 
 to practise it. 
 
 Being intended to produce material benefit, it follows 
 as a matter of course that Co-operation must begin by 
 being thoroughly businesshke. Should it become other- 
 wise, its benefits are likely to prove illusory, and will 
 •certainly be dealt out with an unequal hand, wronging 
 one while bringing unmerited gain to another. And 
 businesslike management is absolutely indispensable for 
 that self-reliant independence which must be the goal of 
 all sound Co-operation. Co-operation must be able to 
 stajid by itself, not lead an epiphyte, much less a parasite 
 •existence. Once it becomes divorced from unadulterated 
 self-help it ceases to be Co-operation. 
 
 Now, the observance of businesslike management 
 should not, in Co-operation, present any insuperable diffi- 
 culties. For, in the first place, unlike other business, 
 •Co-operation begins with an assured market, or else an 
 assured workshop for the material required. And in the 
 ■second, the calls upon its business managers are in any 
 case likely to be proportioned only to the abihty which these 
 men possess. Herr Abt, in his interesting history of Agri- 
 •cultural Co-operation in Switzerland, distinctly attributes 
 the striking success of his own Union, that of Eastern 
 Switzerland, to the fact that all its managers are and all 
 along have been simple " peasants " — some of them large 
 peasants, but still all specifically representative members 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 21 
 
 of the " peasant " class. A large society, with manifold 
 transactions and substantial interests at stake, may- 
 require practised commercial capacity. But it will also 
 be in a position to command such. The small" local 
 society, which we have most prominently to keep in view, 
 will not demand more business skill than the native 
 motherwit and intelligence of the ablest among its small 
 farmer members can supply. The transactions are likely 
 to be limited in substance as well as in kind. The market 
 is there. The important point is that there should be 
 local men to judge of local wants. 
 
 No doubt a society so situated as is here supposed 
 will do well to enrol itself for mutual assistance and support 
 in such union or federation as will have to be recom- 
 mended on other grounds besides. One of the peculiar 
 advantages which Co-operation offers to small men, and 
 which ought to be well taken into account, is this, that 
 it places skilled advice and skilled service at their disposal 
 at exceedingly moderate cost, thus raising them in this 
 matter completely to a level with their wealthier neigh- 
 bours, who have thus far enjoyed a monopoly of the 
 ancillary learning, skiU and experience, which nowadays 
 enter so largely into the pursuit of Agriculture. Agriculture, 
 by itself is still only an ordinary craft, but, if it is to be 
 practised with success, it is dependent upon the aid of several 
 of the most recondite sciences, as well as upon thoroughly 
 commercial management. The oldfashioned, simple 
 methods and easy calculations will no longer suffice. 
 The farmer of to-day wants to be, in person or by sub-, 
 stitute, a skilled trader. There must be a knowledge of 
 trading principles, of markets, a power of scientific 
 calculation, of chemical analysis and botanical examina- 
 tion, such as an ordinary small fsirmer can neith'er be 
 expected to possess nor can afford to purchase for himself. 
 Co-operation here comes to his rescue. It provides for 
 
22 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 him the persons who can by their knowledge and expert 
 ness do for him what he cannot do for himself. Purchas 
 ing — together with others — ^in large quantities, the singl 
 man may make a better bargain, in this as well as in othe 
 respects that he purchases — even his small individua 
 lot — subject to scientific examination and under th 
 most favourable conditions as regards knowledge o 
 markets and familiarity with the article purchased. Th 
 skilled trader, employed by his society — ^towards whos 
 salary he contributes a mere trif[e«7-knows precisely ii 
 what shape he will at the time most economically acquin 
 the particular fertilising or feeding constituent whicl 
 the farmer's field or his beasts stand in need of ; and als( 
 which form of it will best suit his specific case. Tb 
 distinct success which our co-operating farmers in th 
 Eastern Counties have secured in the sale of Uve stock 
 is in great part attributable to their employment of ex 
 perts who know every market within reach of their district 
 and can accordingly in every instance select the mos 
 favourable one for the particular beast to be sold. Ii 
 the same way a co-operative society or union may avai 
 itself, for the benefit of its members, of the services o 
 experts of eggs, butter, bacon, fruit, grain, machinery 
 — everything, in fact, which enters into farming practice 
 The conditions constituting businesslike managemen 
 in a co-operative society it is not difficult to specify. Om 
 I is that it should be made a fundamental and indispensabl 
 , rule that no risk whatever should be incurred, no specu 
 •^ lation entered upon, but that all business taken up shoul( 
 be kept perfectly safe. That fallows from the principl 
 already laid down that Co-operation studies, not selfisl 
 gain, but common service. 
 
 Co-operation and risk or speculation absolutely ex 
 elude one another. Risk and speculation, under temptatioi 
 which seemed to promise certain gain, have led more thai 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES 23 
 
 one society intending to be co-operative, even great unions, 
 into serious loss and even destruction. There should be 
 absolutely nothing undertaken that involves risk. 
 
 The most effective safeguard to ensure this wiU be 
 the enforcement, as a reahty, of strict responsibihty, 
 coupled with that " maximum of publicity " which Sir 
 Robert Morier so strongly insists upon. It is for this 
 purpose that so many foreign co-operative societies prefer 
 unlimited liability to limited. Involving the possibility 
 of greater loss, unlimited liability effectively sharpens 
 vigilance and a disposition to be critical. Except in one 
 particular form of Co-operation, which can absolutely 
 not do without it — but in which it becomes wholly freed 
 from all its terrors — ^that form of Hability is out of the 
 question in this country, as being unacceptable to our 
 people. And it is not needed. But a lively interest 
 among members in the affairs of the society, which natur- 
 ally produces the requisite oversight of officers, there should 
 be. It is one of the advantages of Co-operation, as com- 
 pared with Joint Stock management, that it directly 
 encourages this and makes it easy. The Board of a 
 Joint Stock Company may lead its shareholders into 
 mischief and even ruin, without their being able to pre- 
 vent it. In a Co-operative society, where every member 
 has an equal vote, it is wholly otherwise. Every member 
 also has an equal say, if he chooses, and has at all times 
 means open to him for ascertaining what has been or is 
 being done, and for taking the opinion of his fellow members 
 upon it. The officers should be selected for their fitness. 
 There should be no " respect of persons " in the sense 
 of " the Squire and his relations." There must be equahty. 
 The more wealthy and better educated are for such very 
 reason hkely also to be highly useful; but if they are 
 leaders they should be leaders on that ground and not 
 because of their social or financial position. In this 
 
24 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 country the question of remuneration for such officer: 
 is not likely to cause any heartburning, as it has done 
 in some places abroad. Remuneration there should b< 
 none. Skilled and expert service will want to be paid 
 And it is well worth it. It wiU in fact be all the bettej 
 for being paid. But persons who simply undertake the 
 management on one or other of the governing bodies oughl 
 to be content with acting for the satisfaction of rendering 
 a service to all. 
 
 It is a mistake to overload the governing bodies 
 either with men or with prescribed formal duties, 
 There may be difficulty from the outset in manning those 
 bodies. Competent men are not everywhere forthcoming 
 in great abundance. We read of societies — petty httle 
 village societies — which are made to appoint three Trustees 
 when often enough they have difficulty in finding one ; 
 and for whose Committee a long catalogue of forma] 
 business is prescribed as a necessity. That is a great 
 mistake. The proper safeguard lies not in such rigid 
 forms, which are mere " leather and prunella," but in the 
 liability to be called to account. The hands of a com- 
 mittee should not be unnecessarily tied. Prompt action 
 may be called for. Careful account keeping there will 
 have to be. But the simpler and more intelligible to 
 the untutored rustic mind it is, the better wiU the society 
 fare. Special branches of business require special book- 
 keeping. But that comes under the head of " skilled " 
 labour. In the hands of the Committee it ought to be 
 reduced to simplicity for the use of members. And a 
 record of all business done should be accessible to members. 
 
 Much has been said lately about an " audit " which, for 
 supposed safety, people desire to make " official." A 
 sound audit of course there wiU have to be. Indeed in 
 co-operative societies we go in some respects beyond a 
 mere actuarial audit and carry inquiry into the character 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 25 
 
 of the business transacted. But making the audit 
 " official " — ^that is, bound to be carried out by officers 
 of the State — ^so far from constituting an additional safe- 
 guard, goes far towards making the check illusory. 
 " Inspection by State auditors," so remarked M. Luzzatti 
 some years ago, with a little pardonable exaggeration, 
 " is worse than no inspection at all." It stands to reason. 
 The State auditor has no interest in the society. He 
 has just to go through his audit as an opus operatum. His 
 inspection, to give the thing a more comprehensive name, 
 is only too likely to degenerate into a perfunctory form 
 or else into an arbitrary exercise of caprice. We have 
 had instances of this abroad. Besides, auditing a co- 
 operative society's accounts is a different thing altogether 
 from auditing accounts, say, of a Joint Stock Company. 
 The methods of business, the aims, the accepted practices 
 are different. It is a speciaUty in auditing. For such 
 service we have in the United Kingdom, under our two 
 Acts, a body of specially skilled " public auditors," 
 annually recognised by the Treasury, who are the people 
 most competent for the work. By all means let us get 
 away from the two unskilled men who are now permitted, 
 as an act of grace, to pass accounts, or else_ supplement 
 their^audit by one by an officer of some Union. But a 
 State audrris"the worst possible remedy for whatever 
 may be amiss. A skilled auditor appointed by the Union 
 of which the society inspected is a member is sure not/ 
 only to possess the requisite technical knowledge, but 
 also a direct interest in making his inquiry searching and 
 going beyond the mere actuarial testing of figures and the 
 comparison of the entries with the vduchers. And his 
 inspection also possesses this very great advantage that 
 it does not come to an end with the report. For there is the 
 Union with disciplinary powers at its command to see 
 that whatever may be wrong is set right. In this respect 
 
 j^ c+anrlc altno-ptbpr hv ifsiplf 
 
26 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 The selection of members will caU for exceptional 
 caution only in the case of one distinct type of credit 
 societies in which, liabiUty being necessarily unlimited, 
 aU success, and even solvency, must depend upon the 
 moral character of the members. Generally speaking 
 we may weU say " the more the merrier," although the 
 character of Co-operation forbids touting, such as is recom- 
 mended in some no.t overwell instructed quarters. For 
 we must try to make sure of quality. " The best security 
 that a co-operative society can give," so M. Luzzatti 
 has laid it down, " is the quality of its members." There 
 axe some few cases however, in which, for the sake of the 
 requisite " bulk," it must even be judged permissible 
 to extend the services of a society — on differential terms 
 — to non-members. This has happened in Germany in 
 respect of very large contracts — as well as for defensive 
 demonstrations. It frequently occurs in Co-operation 
 for the sale of live stock, for the supply of electric power, 
 for the co-operative employment of threshing and other 
 large machinery and the like. On the other hand there 
 are also likely to be cases — more specifically among credit 
 societies, but also among productive — ^in which the 
 secession of a large number of members may caU for a 
 consideration whether the society should continue or 
 wind up while its number is still complete. That will 
 apply spefcifically where there are habilities to meet, from 
 which seceders might escape. 
 
 In respect of the area to be covered organisers wiU 
 do well not to tie themselves down too pedantically to 
 any one principle. There are people who will not hear 
 of anything but small parish societies, serving as units 
 for the fabric. And such pedantic principle has among 
 ourselves in practice led to the all but drumming out of 
 the most active society in the kingdom, which had ac- 
 complished more for practical Agricultural Co-operation 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 27 
 
 than all the rest among them, out of a Union. That 
 is ridiculously overdoing what as a general rule is right 
 enough. There is a very great deal to be said for large 
 societies. Wherever you organise you will have to pay 
 regard carefully to local circumstances. Capital societies 
 have been formed occupying large areas. The point to 
 be kept in view is that in a large society small men should 
 not see their interests neglected. That not only is per- 
 fectly compatible with extent of area, but also corresponds 
 with the interests of the larger men in the society them- 
 selves, whose object it is in their dealing to produce " bulk " 
 and to keep out competition. The Eastern Counties 
 Farmers' Co-operative Association covers portions of 
 three counties ; and in France there are Agricultural 
 Syndicates extending over entire departments. 
 
 We may now suppose our co-operative society to 
 have been formed, its officers to have been elected, a 
 simple system of accounts to have been decided upon 
 and the whole organisation got under weigh. One of the 
 first points to occupy its attention will be the question 
 of funds. Without adequate funds nothing is to be ac- 
 complished. Now, obviously the amount of funds 
 required wiU have to depend not only upon the area to 
 be covered and the number of members to be served, 
 but also upon the particular business which the society 
 selects for its operations. The choice of such business, 
 conversely, will have to be governed by the amount of 
 financial and trading strength present. Now on this 
 point a word of caution may be in place. A society will 
 have to cut its coat according to its cloth. With ample 
 support and adequate means to begin with, it may set 
 its hand to large and varied transactions. But that is 
 not likely to happen in the majority of cases. And there 
 is great virtue in not beginning with excessive ambitions, 
 especially on untried ground. There is danger in starting 
 
as CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 on a race with the constable. There are co-operative 
 undertakings which imperatively call for a bold plan of 
 campaign from the very beginning. Such ought certainly 
 not to be attempted without an abundant supply of cash 
 being assured. We have some huge co-operative dairies, 
 grain storing warehouses, electric power works and the 
 like, which it would have been a gross mistake to begin 
 upon timid and tentative hnes. 
 
 Generally speaking, however, the first impulse given 
 to the formation of a co-operative society wiU be the 
 want felt, among people with only Httle capital, of a cheaper 
 or better supply, or of more advantageous disposal of 
 agricultural produce on restricted hnes. It will be well 
 to begin with such one form of business and to expand 
 and multiply services only as transactions increase and 
 the society acquires financial and trading strength. There 
 are many large and powerful co-operative organisations 
 "which began in the humblest of ways. One such example 
 is that of the great " Imperial Union " of Germany, 
 now composed of about twenty thousand societies, which 
 started on its triumphal career in the early eighties as 
 a little cluster of strugghng local supply societies doing 
 severally very little business. In the same way French 
 Agricultural Co-operation, now so highly developed, 
 began with " Agricultural S37ndicates " acting, in their 
 own words, merely as " letter boxes," for the receipt and 
 transmission of orders. Money they had none ; and 
 the law prohibited their buying and selling on their own 
 account. Chi va piano va sano. As business increases, 
 on the other hand, it will be well to extend the working 
 ground as opportunity offers. As in the popular proverb, 
 we may in this connection couple the initial " waste not " 
 with the subsequent " spare not." The Danish principle 
 of limiting societies practically for all time to one parti- 
 cular function each, and so multipl37ing societies, will 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLEi,. 29- 
 
 scarcely suit our own case. We like going to one shop^ 
 And there is so much that may be conveniently 
 combined, with economy of managing power ! Also- 
 Co-operation engenders Co-operation. Dairy societies, 
 for instance, have proved most fruitful generators of 
 other Co-operation. The society which buys may also 
 without prejudice to its bu5ang sell; the society which 
 employs motive power during certain hours may apply 
 the same motive power to some other service at other times . 
 There are forms of co-operative societies which have by 
 fixing more belts, figuratively speaking, to their shafting 
 imparted an active stimulus to new forms of Co-operation 
 which have proved exceedingly useful. A supply society 
 becoming also a sale society is the simplest form of such 
 multiplication of services ; and, almost by its very nature, it 
 has succeeded. For the same capacity that suffices for buy- 
 ing will do so for ordinary selUng — selhng, it may be, beyond 
 the province which the supply practised covers. The 
 man who supphes milk requires feeding stuffs and other 
 articles. In all probability he also has eggs to sell and, 
 it may be, table poultry. Then, where there is power, 
 the dairy can supply only partial emplo5mient for such 
 and will leave a balance which almost seeks for other 
 emplojmient in off time. In the choice of a branch of 
 business to be taken up it will be well for societies to keep 
 the following two rules of safety steadily in view. 
 
 In the first place. Co-operation being, as it has been 
 laid down, simply a union of efforts among more or less 
 similarly situated persons for the attainment of a common 
 end, it will be well to study equahty in position among 
 members, calling — except in supply business — for some- 
 thing like equahty in stake. It will be well to keep out 
 very glaring inequahties. In Supply Co-operation, of 
 course, it does not matter ; for there everybody buys 
 according to his needs and that settles itself. But ia 
 
30 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 production or common work the " big " member may 
 become very inconvenient to the small, and, vice versa, 
 the small to the big. That is why the manufacture ol 
 sugar out of sugarbeet is foimd to be very difficult tc 
 organise on fully co-operative lines. There must needs bt 
 large growers or shareholders in such an undertaking 
 who can scarcely be indifferent to being placed on a dead 
 level with their small comrades in the matter of the vote, 
 To a certain extent this objection is also found to applj 
 to the supply of electric power. 
 
 In the next place, as already observed, whatevei 
 involves risk is carefuUy to be avoided. Accordinglj 
 trade in articles of a risky character must be ruled out 
 An example taken from Burgundy will illustrate thf 
 meaning of this. Burgundy grows large quantities ol 
 black currants, a considerable portion of which find thei] 
 way to our shores to be among ourselves consumed ir 
 the shape of jam. To gain a larger profit out of the sale 
 the intermediary dealers combined to a " ring,'' and 
 oppressed the growers. The growers after a time retaliated 
 by combining in their turn, co-operatively, and selling 
 their goods in common. The dealers' ring could nol 
 stand against this, because black currants are a tolerably 
 steady crop with a steady, assured market, without 
 therefore any serious speculation in the business. Th« 
 very same thing was tried with hops — and Co-operatior 
 failed, as in this application it has failed pretty well every- 
 where (except where subsidised). The reason is thai 
 hops are a most uncertain crop, to begin with, the con 
 sumption of which likewise varies a great deal and th( 
 price of which is tossed up and pulled down in a way no' 
 to be foreseen. This matter will be more fully explainec 
 in its proper place. 
 
 To return to the question of funds — on this point 
 as on all others in Co-operation, members will do wel 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 31 
 
 to rely as much as they at all can manage, upon their 
 own resources. There is an eagerness for borrowing 
 now in vogue which threatens danger. People want to 
 borrow for every conceivable purpose, to the saving of 
 their own pockets, enhsting the risk of others for their 
 own benefit. We have seen what that has led to in the 
 cases of German and Austrian wine societies and grain 
 stores. In this country we have had even co-operative 
 supply societies, which certainly ought to be able to pro- 
 vide their own cash — seeing that their business is cash 
 business, thriving, not upon capital but upon custom — 
 asking for " credit." Now credit is an admirable servant 
 in its proper place, but an execrable master. And to 
 rely upon it, not for an occasional, temporary requirement, 
 but for laying the foundation of business, is to court dis- 
 aster. There are exceptions. The Danish creameries 
 and bacon factories began with borrowed money, as did 
 also many a co-operative dairy in Germany. Conditions 
 were such that banks could trust these concerns, more 
 especially in view of (in Denmark) the imUmited liability 
 of members engaged and (in both cormtries) the binding 
 contracts obtained from members to dehver all their pro- 
 duce for an extended period. On the other hand repaying 
 — in the case of creameries by so much, as a first charge, 
 on every gallon of milk used — ^is an easy process, which 
 has answered well. But we are in this country disinclined 
 to unlimited hability, except in one single case. Accord- 
 ingly among ourselves one essential condition drops out 
 of the suggested bargain. We should not be overchary 
 of taking shares. Those shares may be large or small, 
 according to circumstances. A small share is easy to 
 pay up, but it will not purchase as much as a large one. 
 Nevertheless under certain conditions it is quite sufficient. 
 And with a fair share capital in hand, supported by sound 
 management, our society will be able, in case of need, 
 
32 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 to obtain credit when such is really necessary, on the 
 strength of its own solvency. However the fact ought 
 not to be lost sight of that Co-operation is distinctly 
 intended as a stimulus and help to thrift. It is not to 
 be dependent upon others. It wants to stand upon its 
 own legs. It is, as has already been said, not to make 
 members rich directly by gaining them profits, but to 
 make them better off by rendering economies possible in 
 business, out of which to accumulate money. There is 
 a good deal of financial strength to be got out of accumu- 
 lating reserves. 
 
 A society may, accordingly, well look to its members 
 for a sufficient provision of working capital. But it has 
 a right also to look to them for more. It has a right tc 
 look to them for loyalty in their deahngs with it. No1 
 a few people seem unable to realise this. To them theii 
 society is only a new shop, at which they may deal oi 
 not, at their pleasure. Hence they y\e\A to the seductive 
 blandishments of interested dealers anxious, for obvious 
 reasons, to break up the society even at a temporary 
 sacrifice, giving them part of their custom or their sales 
 — and that generally the most valuable part ; for the 
 dealer in making his preferential offer is wont to be 
 eclectic — and leaving the society to manage as best i1 
 can with the rest, which often enough is mere rubbish 
 No society could successfully carry on business on sucl 
 lines. What the members acting as has been instancec 
 forget is that the society's interest is their interest, its gair 
 their gain, its loss their loss. It is to provide for then 
 what they cannot otherwise secure — an independent 
 steady and trustworthy market, or else a source of suppl] 
 for all seasons. If it is to do this, it must have their ful 
 and loyal support, as a matter to be relied upon. Or- 
 ganisers of Co-operation on new ground, especially if ii 
 be Agricultural, very commonly find that this is not al 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 33 
 
 once tmderstood by those for whose benefit they are acting. 
 ■" Perhaps the greatest difficulty," so writes Mr. J. S. 
 Corbett, the organiser of the " Wilts Farmers," " has 
 been to instil the true spirit of Co-operation in the minds 
 of our members, and to make them understand that we 
 -are working for the benefit of the whole of our members." 
 There will be many to echo this complaint. Having a 
 ■quantity of produce to dispose of, coming in steadily and 
 regularly in batches to be foreknown, the society can 
 make sure of securing a market. Not otherwise. In 
 buying for members it is the certainty which it possesses 
 of getting rid of every particle of its purchases which 
 enables it to contract for large quantities at preferential 
 prices. Take away the certainty of support and its posi- 
 tion becomes altogether untenable. It is for this reason 
 that so many societies abroad, the successful Danish ones 
 at the head of the number, have made it a standing rule 
 to bind their members to exclusive dealings with them 
 in aU such articles as they happen to deal in — or at any 
 rate a substantial fixed proportion of them. Whether 
 we in this country accept the same stringent rule or not,' 
 ^ loyalty of members to their society is a cardinal condition ' 
 of success in co-operative action. In a Report contributed" 
 1:0 the " Journal of the Board of Agriculture " the spokes- 
 man of the Eastern Counties Farmers' Co-operative 
 Association — the success of which has already been 
 referred to — says : " The Committee consider that the 
 success of the busiaess may be largely attributed to the 
 fact that, owing to the support which members have 
 given in the way of placing their orders with the Associa- 
 tion, it has been able to secure competent and expert 
 managers, whose service, in conjunction with that of 
 the Trading Committee, renders the Association one 
 ■of the best trading bodies working for the interest of the 
 iarmer in the Eastern Counties. The Association is, in 
 •effect, a large merchant working for the good of the farmer." 
 
34 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 It remains to mention the very important point ol 
 Federation — Federation or Union. On the face of it 
 if there is any good in Co-operation on a small scale, there 
 must a fortiori be good in it also on a larger one. It is 
 not only that the larger the constituency, the greatei 
 will be the bulk of goods to be dealt in, the more pro- 
 pitious accordingly will be the conditions for advantageous 
 buying and selling. The larger the constituency the 
 greater variety of services also wiU it be possible to render ; 
 and the more skilled, and better skilled, assistance wil 
 it be possible to call in ; lastly, the more purely and 
 effectively will it be possible to organise Co-operation, 
 Union is required for two distinct purposes. The one 
 is business ; the other is propaganda, common action — 
 defensive or otherwise — and control. The Co-operative 
 ■.Wholesale Society and the Co-operative Union are 
 severally examples of the two kinds of organisations 
 required. The two distinct functions which they stand 
 for should not be confused, although in certain cases 
 they may without prejudice be combined. Trade is one 
 thing. The more custom you gather together, the more 
 favourable will be your conditions for trading. The 
 importance of this consideration is so obvious that in 
 Germany for certain purposes even large Co-operative 
 Unions — there are more that 26,000 agricultural co-op- 
 erative societies in the Empire — have on occasion combined 
 with non-co-operative but likewise agricultural organisa- 
 tions — ^like the Bund der Landwirthe and the Deutsche 
 Landwirthschaftsgesellschajt — standing for a large body 
 of producers or consumers, and have found this to answer. 
 It was on the strength of the waste of power brought about 
 by separate existence, that in 1898, at the aimual Congress 
 of the Haas Union of co-operative societies at Carlsruhe, 
 I ventured strongly to advocate such union with the 
 Raiffeisen Union as has since been successfully established 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 35 
 
 (for business purposes) in 1905 and as has, commercially, 
 proved a source of new strength. It was truly pitiful 
 to witness the waste of strength caused by separate ex- 
 istence. And if we look at some of the distributive 
 services to be rendered in detail we cannot fail to realise 
 how indispensable is combination on a large scale to 
 some of them. Let alone big purchases and contracts 
 — as in Germany for potash salts, which have become a 
 monopoly — and sales of graded produce, how is a single 
 society profitably to estabhsh electric power plant, or 
 to secure for its " brand " of butter, bacon or whatever 
 it be, sufficient recognition ? 
 
 Separation moreover shuts out those justly famous 
 " Control Societies " which, originating in Switzerland, 
 have by way of Denmark overspread the best part of the 
 Continent. Their services, which are most valuable, 
 come distinctly under our present head. Their first office 
 was simply to measure the quantity of milk given by each 
 cow, so as to permit a judgment as to which animal was to 
 be marked out for keeping and breeding, or else for being 
 got rid of. But the skUled experts employed have long 
 since gone much beyond such narrow conception of their 
 duties. They now instruct the cowkeepers how to feed, 
 and how otherwise to treat their cows ; they teach them 
 what breeds to select, how best to grow the crops raised 
 for fodder ; in fact they instruct them in all particulars 
 of their farming — ^rotation, cultivation, dealing with the 
 produce and so on. In Germany, where recourse to legal 
 proceedings is common and the law is intricate, agricul- 
 tural co-operative imions provide e,ven legal advice and 
 the services of experienced solicitors for members of their 
 societies. In dealing with Insurance Companies they 
 prevent members being beaten down by Company valuers, 
 sending their own experienced representatives, canying 
 with them all the prestige of the powerful Union, to stand 
 up for them. 
 
j6 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Of course such things require to be organised. W 
 have in this country begun — under this head — on th 
 right lines by organising local sections which are eventuall; 
 to find their commercial head in a Central Society- 
 a Co-operative Wholesale Society of some sort or other 
 For propaganda, organisation, the maintenance of commoi 
 touch, common resistance to hostile movements cominj 
 from without and last, not least, control, so as to keep Co 
 operation pure and uniform in essentials, and financ 
 safe, we require a " Union." Such Union 'likewise want 
 to be organised. In this respect we have made a poo 
 beginning in England. Our neighbours in Ireland havi 
 acted on far sounder lines, bringing together a thoroughb 
 representative institution, in which the societies ar( 
 masters and the General Meeting is — like the Co-operativ( 
 Union Congress of industrial societies in this country— 
 a Co-operative Parliament. In the Agricultural Organisa 
 tion Society the representative principle has thus fa 
 remained conspicuous .by its absence. But you canno 
 have a sound Union without it. It is to the observance o 
 such representative principle that the great Germai 
 Imperial Union owes its success. It is all one. It act 
 together, it trades together. But every section has it 
 own independent position, its own independent govern 
 ment, out of which several governments the centra 
 government is composed. The mere stimulating effec 
 of such organisation is remarkable. Every country o 
 province is enabled to contribute to the common stocl 
 that one particular form of Co-operation in which it excel 
 and so, by a healthy.and friendly competition, the entin 
 body becomes enriched. One section excels in the apph 
 ■cation of electric power and pushes its experiments on 
 Another excels in the sale of live stock and experiment: 
 in that for the benefit of the Union. A third scores wit! 
 its grainselling organisations. However the gain resultinj 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 37 
 
 locally becomes at once common property. Such organis- 
 ation also provides admirably for a competent highly 
 qualified governing staff. It is the best men, the best 
 administrators, the most experienced leaders everywhere 
 who are elected to the Central body. And such organisation 
 secures for the Union a prestige, power and influence 
 which nothing else could provide. The Union speaks and 
 acts with unmistakable force as the undoubted represent- 
 ative of collective opinion in its particular class. It could 
 not do this if it consisted of a dozen or score of practically 
 self-appointed persons representing only their own good 
 wiU and zeal. One may indeed hope that long time will 
 not elapse before we attempt to apply the same system 
 in this country. 
 
 In what has been said above the main guiding princi- 
 ples for setting Agricultural Co-operation in motion appear 
 to have been given. The various points suggested will 
 necessarily crop up again in the succeeding chapters, 
 in which Co-operation in its various forms, as apphed 
 ±0 Agriculture, wiU be discussed somewhat more in detail. 
 
38 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 III. -CO-OPERATIVE SUPPLY OF GOODS 
 
 The form of Co-operation which lends itself mos 
 readily to practice, amid any surroundings, is that c 
 common supply. That is why our industrial co-operator 
 have taken it up first of all. It involves no additioni 
 expense or sacrifice. Certain goods have to be got i 
 any case. The money has to be spent. Collective buyin 
 simply cheapens the purchase or improves the quality- 
 which from our point of view both come to the same thin^ 
 And that is a thing valuable to the purchaser. Thei 
 is, as a general rule, not much special competence or trair 
 ing required for the management of such Co-operatior 
 Its organisation is easy and so is its control. 
 
 All this applies to Agriculture as it does to working 
 men's or other people's supply of domestic requirementi 
 So far as it is intended for Agriculture proper — as dis 
 tinguished from rural housekeeping — ^it applies indee 
 with additional force. For the penny to be saved i 
 agricultural co-operative supply is in truth a penny ' ' got, 
 a penny not merely rescued from regular outgoings, bu 
 one which will bear fruit, being destined for productiv 
 employment. It deserves to be pointed out that, judge 
 by the modem standard of perfected agriculture, mos 
 of our British agriculture is under-financed. There ma 
 be much money laid out in the soil. But it is not tha 
 which produces paying crops or paying Uve stock. W 
 have to-day got as far beyond Jethro TuU's simple theory 
 which made the soil the source of aU plant nourishmen 
 as we have beyond the ancient chemical formula whic 
 recognised only four (in truth, very composite) " elements, 
 
CO-OPERATIVE SUPPLY OF GOODS. 
 
 39 
 
 namely :^-€arth, fire, water and air. The land is to-day 
 little more than the farmer's " workshop." It is the 
 money which goes into the land which produces the 
 return. And of such money practical farmers as a rule 
 haye less than they should. An accepted rule, when the 
 author was young, was that there should be £10 to the 
 acre — which was not in every case forthcoming. To-day 
 we are aware that there can scarcely be too much working 
 capital. The farmer who possesses much capital — and 
 who, in addition, is also a man of business, with business 
 ways, calculating things beforehand, and cutting down 
 waste — nets a good income. But how to procure access 
 to such money for him who does not possess it ? Co- 
 operative supply offers the easiest method. If only 
 practised on ordinary business Hnes, it is sure to leave 
 something over. In industrial Co-operation the ordinary 
 overplus is about ten per cent . That, if carefully husbanded, 
 may gradually produce a fairly substantial addition to 
 existing working capital. In any case it is bound to make 
 what working capital there is go further. And it provides 
 an excellent schooling for Co-operation of other forms. 
 
 Under such circumstances there cannot be thought 
 to be anj^hing surprising in the fact that agricultural — 
 hke industrial— Co-operation has ever3rwhere, or almost 
 everywhere, begun with Supply, the cheap provision of 
 goods, or the supply of better goods for the old price, 
 by means of collective purchase ; and that in the amount 
 of its turnover such Co-operation now overtops all other 
 forms. It was with the provision of cheaper bread that 
 Raiffeisen began his beneficent work. The supply of 
 live stock followed next. Money-^-or credit — stood third, 
 in natural sequence. It was with supply that Herr Haas, 
 whose great " Imperial Union " now, with its 20,000 
 societies, overspreads all Germany, entered upon his 
 economic campaign. And similarly it was supply which 
 
40 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 the French " Agricultural Sjmdicates," under the guidano 
 of Professor Tanviray, first took up. We ourselves also 
 in the sixties, began with supply — mainly with the suppb 
 of superphosphate, which was at that time, under Professo: 
 Liebig's teaching, our favourite, if not our sole, artificia 
 fertihser. 
 
 From supply a co-operative movement may, as ii 
 fact it has done in Germany and France, develop to th( 
 grandest proportions and the most varied composition 
 for there is no form of Co-operation which cannot b( 
 grafted upon supply. Supply may not be ever3rwher( 
 the form most urgently needed. We may want dairie; 
 first, or egg societies or societies for the provision of powei 
 or of credit. But in any case we cannot do without supply 
 
 And to co-operative supply agriculture owes i 
 great deal — ^not merely the money saved upon the purchase 
 of necessary goods. Supply has in most cases trainee 
 to other forms of Co-operation. And it certainly trains 
 to better farming by the very act of cheapening the goods 
 required. More have in consequence been used. And 
 I'appHit est venu en mangeant. More being used, thost 
 goods have been used more scientifically and with greatei 
 discrimination. And the results have not failed to appeal 
 in improved yield. And in the end the more enlightened 
 dealers and manufacturers themselves have overcome 
 the grudge that they at first naturally enough bore tc 
 Co-operation, because they find that, thanks to it, thej 
 get rid of much larger quantities of their goods and sc 
 reap in aggregate returns more than they sacrifice in 
 price on single lots. 
 
 And supply is so easily organised ! The French 
 began, as observed, with an institution which acted simplj 
 as a " letterbox," collecting orders, bulking them foi 
 transmission to dealers or makers, and levying on the 
 saving so effected a small toll to pay its own expenses. 
 
CO-OPERATIVE SUPPLY OF GOODS. 41 
 
 In some circumstances we may have to begin in 
 something like the same fashion. It cannot answer to 
 go, in money or in custom, beyond our actual power — the 
 measure of which it cannot be difficult to ascertain. Over- 
 shooting such mark may mean loss beyond what appears 
 to follow from the actual disappointment, because it brings 
 embarrassment in its train. Should we find ourselves 
 successful, we shall be easily able to extend our business — 
 as Herr Haas has done, as Raiffeisen has done, as the East- 
 ern Swiss Agricultural Co-operative Union has done, 
 all of them having started from very humble beginnings. 
 The great point will be to study our market and make 
 sure of it. Our first supply must be distinctly adapted 
 to the demand which we may foretell will be made upon 
 it. To that we must stick. We cannot afford to incur 
 any risk, either in this matter or — let us add at once — 
 in the matter of payment. 
 
 The question now to be dealt with is this : How should 
 we organise ? The point has been referred to in the past 
 chapter ; but we cannot altogether evade it here. Shall 
 we begin with small parish societies ? We may have to 
 do so. Even so we stand to gain. But when people 
 refer, as a precedent, to our early industrial societies, 
 which were humble indeed, it wiU be to the point to remind 
 them that the object of an agricultural co-operative 
 society of to-day is not quite the same as that of an indus- 
 trial store of those days. In an industrial store smallness 
 means the imparting of business (and other) education 
 to people who need it badly, also moral training, the 
 formation of character. Our industrial co-operators 
 started from a very humble level. They have long since 
 exhibited, under altered circumstances, a decided pre- 
 ference for large stores — to be worked, where necessary, 
 by branches — in which economy is greater and transactions 
 become more profitable. It is likely to be the same thing 
 
42 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 in Agricultural Co-operation. In agricultural supply 
 we look, as a rule, less for direct — there will be plenty 
 of indirect — educational results than for economic. Such 
 results will of course include an awakening of a sense 
 of common interest, linking men together. But we no 
 longer stand upon the ground of early Rochdale. The 
 greater the bulk, the more profitable is the business Ukely 
 to be. Steam and electricity have overcome many of 
 the early inconveniences of distance, and perfected 
 banking arrangements have facilitated money transactions. 
 Business is accordingly easier than it was, which is in 
 favour of large societies. 
 
 The first thing a society will have to turn its attention 
 to, when forming, is the provision of funds. The selection 
 of members wiU in supply occasion no difficulty, because 
 unless — which should as a rule not be — credit is allowed to 
 members in respect of their purchases, there will be no 
 risk incurred. * There can in supply be no suggestion of 
 other than strictly limited liabihty. And observance 
 of the wholesome canon that no business is to be entered 
 into with non-members — unless it be, under special 
 arrangements, with a view to enlisting such as recruits, 
 to drop into the ranks as time goes on — is hkely soon 
 to serve as a magnet to attract more members. There 
 are precedents distinctly in favour of this. There has 
 
 * The "credit" ostensibly allowed to purchasing members in 
 some German societies particularly strong in funds and possessing 
 a secure hold upon their members, and also in some Irish societies, 
 is not "credit" in our present sense. It is merely the application 
 of a well established commercial custom, which permits a fixed — 
 but not extendible — interval between delivery and payment, to 
 agricultural trading. What makes "credit" in its ordinary sense 
 dangerous is its extendibility and general uncertainty. The 
 " credit" here spoken of will be applicable only in few cases. As 
 a general rule the accepted maxim should be: "No credit 
 whatever! " 
 
CO-OPERATIVE SUPPLY OF GOODS. 43 
 
 been no more effective recruiting officer for German 
 Agricultural Co-operation than the legal prohibition of 
 dealing with non-members. But funds there must be. In 
 supply there can only in very rare cases be any call for 
 a resort to credit on behalf of the society. For cash pay- 
 ments provide for quick returns. What a supply society 
 requires it ought therefore to be able to provide out of 
 members' own pockets, in the shape of shares — the amount 
 so collected to be systematically added to by a studied 
 accumulation of reserve. Where there are small men 
 to be catered for, the value of the share need not be large. 
 Men with more abundant means wiU in that case be able 
 to subscribe further capital by taking up more shares. 
 The Eastern Counties Farmers' Co-operative Association 
 makes the holding of shares proportional to the acreage 
 occupied, calling upon members to take up one 5s. share 
 in respect of every ten acres farmed. And although 
 of that sum only one fourth is actually called up, the 
 capital so raised appears to have been found fuUy 
 sufi&cient. 
 
 Funds being provided, the society wiU have to make 
 sure of its market. 
 
 The study of such market is really a requirement 
 of wider bearing for a society than may appear at first 
 glance. It applies ahke to the selection of the goods 
 to be dealt in, the number of which may at first have to be 
 limited, and to the quantitative extent of its dealings. 
 Such society should not buy goods " on spec." The 
 " letterbox " system of the early French Agricultural 
 Sjmdicates already alluded to shows in an exaggerated 
 form what its dealings essentially should be— bupng 
 only what is certain to be sold. Of course, as a society's 
 business grows, it will be impossible quite hteraUy to 
 adhere to this rule. There must then be a stock. There 
 must be goods purchased in advance. Very possibly 
 
44 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 there may be some such necessity even at the outset. 
 But the advance to such development should be conducted 
 with circumspection. Stocks of goods to be held over 
 have caused severe loss to more societies than one. It 
 will be for practice and experience to determine how 
 far in this respect each society can go. The success 
 achieved by industrial societies, some of which hold large 
 stocks, shows that proper discrimination may well be 
 learnt. However, agricultural societies are in this matter 
 differently situated. Industrial deal in household goods, 
 articles of daily requirement, for which demand is on 
 the whole continuous and to be fpreseen. Agricultural 
 societies deal — -in the main — in specifically agricultural 
 commodities, each of which bulks larger in the stock 
 and the holding over of which may mean keeping them 
 on hand, " eating their heads off," for a year or not much 
 less. Also the value of those commodities is much more 
 subject to fluctuations. Therefore stocks want to be 
 avoided as much as possible, more especially in small 
 societies, which are likely to be weak in financial power. 
 The necessity of command of a market is also oi 
 importance as making for strength for the movement as a 
 whole, which effect should always be kept in sight 
 Societies cannot aspire to a brilliant future all by them- 
 selves. Every single society will be the stronger, the 
 better the movement thrives as a whole. There is ar 
 identity of interest, a link binding members together 
 on this larger scale also, which reacts very distinctly and 
 promptly upon every single society. It is to the interesi 
 of every society that it should be able to provide itsel: 
 with cheap and high quality goods. This is to be don« 
 only by combination with other societies and by the col- 
 lective maintenance of a wholesale society. Now thai 
 means that there must be an assured market, a certair 
 demand, to be relied upon and to be foreseen, also for the 
 
CO-OPERATIVE SUPPLY OF GOODS 45 
 
 wholesale organisation. The practice which makes pur- 
 chase in respect of all articles that a society deals in 
 compulsory upon its members is not very popular in 
 this country. Not yet, at any rate. But it is freely 
 apphed abroad and is found to work so well that societies 
 and members gladly submit to it. The supply of goods 
 is under members' own control. Therefore they lose 
 nothing by being compelled to buy — what they do buy 
 — at their store ; for they can insist upon good quality. 
 But to the society it is a source of great strength to have 
 an absolutely certain demand to rely upon. 
 
 A further point very deserving of consideration 
 is this, whether a supply society should limit its supply 
 of goods to agricultural requirements only — fertilisers, 
 feeding stuffs, seeds, implements and so on — or whether 
 it should extend its operations also to dealing in household 
 articles — foodstuffs, piecegoods, hardware, groceries and 
 the like. In some foreign countries there is a pro- 
 nounced unwillingness to such extension, which is to a great 
 extent not voluntary but enforced. Governments are 
 fully wilhng to befriend farmers by promoting Co-opera- 
 tion ; but in doing so they would rather make as few 
 enemies in other quarters as they can. For tradesmen 
 have votes — like farmers. And zeal for the welfare of 
 " the middle classes " — which in continental nomenclature 
 means the smaller dealers and manufacturers, who are 
 official "hons enfans " and, Hke the farmers, coddled 
 with grants as a supposed buttress against " Sociahsm " 
 — is great. Accordingly in some countries — most notably 
 in Austria and France — dealing in household goods is 
 tabooed, and indeed actually forbidden by law. And 
 even many Raiffeisen societies employ their powers to 
 carry it on merely as a rod to be exhibited on the mantel- 
 piece with a view to keeping dealers on their good be- 
 haviour. However there is a great deal to be said for 
 
46 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 ■dealing also in household articles. And for district 
 like those that we have to think of in Ireland, it appear 
 an absolute necessity, the salvation of the local population 
 For there is no prospect otherwise of breaking the siniste 
 power of the gombeen usurer, which eats into the socia 
 system like a canker. 
 
 There are recommendations on other grounds a 
 
 ■well, from a co-operative point of view. In many c 
 
 our societies — even among tolerably substantial farmer 
 
 — ^we have observed a far greater eagerness for purchasin 
 
 household articles than farming requisites. And, indeed 
 
 the trade in the former bids fair to prove itself a pilla 
 
 of strength to specifically agricultural supply. So i 
 
 has been in Switzerland, among the agricultural popula 
 
 tion who have raised up to their own benefit what is i 
 
 many respects an ideal co-operative organisation, th 
 
 Eastern Swiss Agricultural Union [Verband osischweizt 
 
 rischer landwirtschaftlicher Genossensrhaften). Things wen 
 
 badly with that Union until, in 1890, dealing in domesti 
 
 requirements was advisedly taken up. Purchase wa 
 
 slack, and so trifling was the annual overplus that nothin 
 
 could be laid by for reserve. Indeed the chairman- 
 
 who was also the main founder of the Union — Curt Schenke 
 
 put it frankly to the General Meeting, whether undf 
 
 the circumstances they had not better give up the attemj 
 
 on which, at his suggestion, they had embarked. " \ 
 
 our co-operative societies are not to grow," so he remarke( 
 
 we must be prepared to see them die." To prevei 
 
 this it was that he proposed taking up distributive tradini 
 
 His proposal being adopted, the Union at once bounds 
 
 into prosperity. It doubled its turnover in the vei 
 
 first year, and kept up that rapid rate of progressic 
 
 for several years running, The business still keeps ii 
 
 creasing. And the turnover in " Store " commoditii 
 
 is now more than twice that of purely agricultural article 
 
CO-OPERATIVE SUPPLY OF GOODS. 47 
 
 " If ovir ranks are to-day more firmly united than those 
 •of other Unions," so Herr Abt writes in his history of 
 the Union, " if we dispose of more ample means, such 
 result is entirely due to our having taken up the trade 
 in household goods. From the very outset the Eastern 
 Swiss Union has looked upon this much disparaged distribu- 
 tive trade as the most briUiant point in its achievements." 
 There could not be a stronger recommendation. 
 
 There are quite particular local reasons to boot why 
 Tve should in this country take up distribution of house- 
 hold goods, which Herr Abt styles " the elementary 
 ■school of Co-operation," as a pioneer and subsequently 
 3. milchcow for agricultural Supply Co-operation. For 
 we are here more favourably situated than people else- 
 where for making it the success for which Herr Abt has 
 ;given it out. We have a large and wealthy co-operative 
 distributive movement already occupying the ground, 
 with two powerful Wholesale Societies at its head, which 
 •could scarcely refuse to accept well constituted rural 
 co-operative societies as members entitled to deal with 
 them on regulation terms. There is accordingly a cheap 
 and trustworthy source for the supply of the goods to 
 be dealt in ready to hand. Members of our distributive 
 stores buying in this way net, as has been already stated, 
 as a rule ten per cent, upon their trade. That ten per 
 cent. " profit " must be a welcome assistance to the 
 ^lowergoing agricultural trade. 
 
 And there is more. By such means we have a good 
 prospect of extending the distributive system of Co-opera- 
 tion, which has proved a godsend and a fruitful root of 
 wellbeing, happiness and social and economic advance 
 to our industrial population, over our rural districts 
 also, in which it must prove very difficult to estabhsh 
 it by other means, and of thus bringing economic relief 
 of the most readily attainable and beneficent kind to 
 our country population. 
 
48 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 And there is this weighty argument to be taken ii 
 consideration. Combine the two services, give to 
 rural population that which they need most urgenl 
 and the want of which they vividly feel, that which ma 
 a call upon their attention every day, and which may ev 
 day reward them with some benefit to be reckoned up 
 figures, and you bring them at once to realise the bene 
 of Co-operation in other forms as well, to identify the 
 selves with their particular society, to feel strongly t] 
 the success of that society is their own success, and 
 cordingly, to become thoroughly loyal to the societj 
 which is one of the first conditions for its success. Si 
 has most notably been the result in Switzerland. 
 
 And let us advance one step further ! The cc 
 bination here insisted upon is bound to promote th 
 close and amicable relations which one may be thank 
 that it has already been possible to establish betw( 
 agricultural and industrial co-operative unions. Si 
 relations there ought to be, and they ought to be clc 
 Because at bottom we have the same interests and 
 may be useful to one another. We can bring to 
 industrial movement additional strength, extended mt 
 bership, increased custom — which means more adv 
 tageous conditions of trade. The industrial co-operati 
 in their turn, can bring us a better knowledge of 
 operation, co-operative spirit and, as the most visi 
 benefit, abundant custom for the disposal of our agricultt 
 produce. Our industrial co-operative societies annu; 
 buy enormous quantities of agricultural produce wh 
 is necessary for their trade. Mr. Cheney has calcula 
 that the quantity of such produce annually dispo 
 of by the great — and excellently managed — Society 
 Leeds alone requires 60,000 or 70,000 acres for raisi 
 And that quantity, large as it is, cannot compare w 
 what the Wholesale Societies absorb. Here is a mar 
 
CO-OPERATIVE SUPPLY OF GOODS. 
 
 49 
 
 which we, on the agricultural side, may well be expected 
 to cultivate. And we may easily cultivate it, because 
 the industrial societies have generously come forward 
 to open to us its gates and to intimate that, quahty and 
 price being equal, they will in bujang give the preference 
 to co-operative produce. It would be foohsh, even if 
 there were no other grounds, to neglect such an oppor- 
 tunity. Only we shall have conscientiously to respect 
 oiu- aUies' rights. In the extension of distributive trade 
 we are championing their cause, fighting their battle. 
 However in some districts they are fighting that same 
 battle for themselves. In such we shall have carefully 
 to abstain from overlapping into their domain. 
 
 And, lastly, such development of mutual relations 
 promises to bring nearer the likelihood of our finding 
 additional strength in the Co-operative Wholesale Society 
 becoming also our wholesale society, for the supply of 
 goods. That would, in the author's opinion, be the 
 very best solution of the " wholesale " difficulty that 
 could be brought about. Of course there are other solu- 
 tions likewise practicable. We have tried one ; but it 
 has proved anything but a success. We must have a whole- 
 sale organisation of some kind or other, even for our purely 
 agricultural trade. There is no doing without it. We 
 must carry collective purchase to the highest attainable 
 point. Our industrial co-operative movement, now so 
 powerful, and occupying so commanding a position, 
 would 'be weak indeed without its Wholesale Societies. 
 It is the wholesale trade which has made it so flourishing. 
 
 The result has been just the same elsewhere in Agricul- 
 tural Co-operation, wherever wholesale purchase has 
 been adopted. The Raiffeisen Union and the Haas Union 
 are strong through their wholesale purchases — and, let 
 me add, as a supplement to them such as we can easily 
 adopt in this country, through their " district purchasing 
 
50 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 associations " {Einkaufs-Vereinigungen), which, in fa 
 preceded the wholesale societies and still maintain the 
 selves by their side, by reason of their recognis 
 utility, because they cater for distinct local wants, sv 
 as do not in every instance concern the entire Uni( 
 We are actually forming " sectional " organisatic 
 qualified to engage in the same class of business. E 
 we want to carry that method further. And on the t 
 of all we shall, as observed, want a wholesale organisatic 
 The industrial Wholesale Society would best ansv 
 our purpose, because it has the entire machinery ready 
 " it's got the ships, it's got the men, it's got the mon 
 too." Everything is ready organised. Dep6ts a 
 markets are distributed all over the country. The Socie 
 already does a large trade in farming requisites — see( 
 fertilisers, feeding-stuffs. All that it would require, 
 fit it for a more complete agricultural service, would 
 expert agricultural advice, such as we, on the agricultui 
 side, might readily give. There is a difficulty, it is tn 
 in the present wording of the Wholesale Society's Cc 
 stitution But we know — ^if from no other precede) 
 from that which gave authority for taking over Insurar 
 business — with what ease such difficulty may be got o\ 
 by a simple vote, a matter of a few minutes. 
 
 There is one more point which calls for consideratic 
 Our fellow co-operators in the industrial' world have ali 
 cheapened their supply and secured for themselves 
 far more independent, and therefore stronger, positi 
 by manufacturing articles for themselves. It mal 
 their organisation more self-contained, more self-relia 
 and better qualified to provide the exact articles th 
 are wanted. In Agricultural Co-operation we have nev 
 had anjHihing of the same sort. Seeing what large quan 
 ties of superphosphate were bought by the co-operati 
 County Associations then existing, I questioned a friei 
 
CO-OPERATIVE SUPPLY OF GOODS. 51 
 
 in the movement more than forty years ago, whether 
 it had ever occurred to their members to manufacture 
 superphosphate for themselves. The reply was a nega- 
 tive. '■ They have never had the enterprise to attempt 
 that." In this respect we stand to-day precisely where 
 we did forty years ago. Our co-operators have met 
 with resistance and hostility from makers of all sorts 
 of agricultural requirements, more particularly from 
 makers of agricultural machinery and implements. There 
 have been times when it was difficult for a Co-operative 
 Supply Association to obtain machinery of certain kinds 
 otherwise than by the interposition of some friendly 
 individual buying in his own name. The Germans, 
 more enterprising than ourselves, have met such opposi- 
 tion by starting their own machinery associations, which, 
 as buyers, come into the market with so much prestige 
 that makers hesitate before refusing them ; but which 
 also— Uke some of their craftmates in the United States 
 — do not a httle makers' work for themselves. Of course 
 the making of machinery of certain designs identified 
 with particular firms — and probably patented — is whoUy 
 out of the question. But, apartfrom buying and distributing 
 such machinery, there are plant and installations, for 
 electric Ughting and power, and for industrial enterprises 
 connected abroad with agriculture and similar things which 
 are provided with greater economy by such associations, 
 whose work is appreciated accordingly. And there 
 are repairs, for which special societies have been formed. 
 In Germany both tj^es of societies work well and find 
 plenty of custom. In Italy the sale of modem implements 
 and machinery, and tuition in the use of them, are com- 
 mitted by those useful institutions the Cattedre Ambulanti, 
 which are veritable pioneers of Agricultural Co-operation, 
 to agents permanently stationed in selected localities, 
 who likewise attend to repairs, which they either execute 
 themselves on the spot or else entrust to central workshops. 
 
52 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 A far more important class of business to which 
 ■co-operative effort is directly applied is the making of 
 artificial fertilisers. In the United States farmers have 
 taken this up as a matter of profitable business. On 
 ihe European Continent agriculturists have really been 
 driven into it by the boycotting and deUberate raising 
 of prices against them practised by " rings " of makers 
 and dealers, of divers wars with whom there is a long 
 history. There have been some abortive attempts, such 
 as for instance the working of a superphosphate factory 
 by the Raiffeisen Union, which was much too paltry an 
 affair to prove of any avail. And under this head we 
 may also class the over- ambitious and therefore futile 
 acquisition of nitrate mines in Chile, for working on 
 their own account, by German agricultural societies. 
 In this matter the mistake so common in co-operative 
 enterprises was made, of overestimating the power of 
 ■one's own capital. That capital appeared large. But 
 it was a mere popgun as compared with the heavy ord- 
 nance of the capitalist mineowners, against which it was 
 to be pitted. And it failed. 
 
 However the Italians have proved distinctly suc- 
 cessful in their manufacture of superphosphates, which 
 is now carried on, on their own account, in ten establish- 
 ments. It was a makers' " ring " which provoked them 
 to action. Makers' " rings" had been very busy in this 
 particular trade all over the Continent. There were 
 " corners " in France, in Germany, in Belgium. In 
 Switzerland the fight was a tough one, but in the end the 
 farmers beat the manufacturers, not by manufacturing for 
 themselves, but by advisedly tabooing superphosphate and 
 buying their phosphate in the shape of Basic Slag. The Swiss 
 have gained more similar victories over dealers in this way. 
 
 The Italian manufacture of superphosphates likewise 
 took its rise in resistance to a manufacturers' " ring." 
 
CO-OPERATIVE SUPPLY OF GOODS. 53 
 
 Manufacturers' aggression began about 1895, and ac- 
 cordingly the Agricultural " Chair " of Mantua— con- 
 sisting of a Professor directed and supervised by a Council 
 of local agriculturists — pleaded in the co-operative press 
 for co-operative manufactiire. However the time seemed 
 not yet ripe for such enterprise. Msmy people doubted 
 the possibility of success and inclined to " capitalist " 
 action, if any, but to be undertaken by farmers and 
 landowners. For some reason or other at that particular 
 time superphosphate went down quite suddenly not a 
 little in price. That favourable state of things came to 
 an end in 1897, when the manufacturers, not solely of 
 Italy, but also of France and of Belgium, combined once 
 more for common action to drive up prices. Agricultural 
 forces were accordingly mobilised afresh and by 1899 
 -sufficient capital appeared to have been gathered together 
 to justify a decisive move. The first works were set up 
 at Mantua, where business was begun in 1900. There 
 are now ten manufacturing establishments at work — 
 "turning out among them about 150,000 tons of super- 
 phosphate every year : — at Mantua, Portogruaro, 
 Lendinara, Adria, Bagnolo Mella, Piacenza, Cremona, 
 Novara, Cerea, and Milan. They are aU of them active, 
 aU prosperous, enjoying a good market and losing little 
 money, if any, by bad debts. To set up and work them 
 something like 8,000,000 lire (£320,000) has been sub- 
 scribed in shares ranging in value from 5 hre (4s.) up to 
 50 lire (£2). The institution being " co-operative," no 
 share-holder is under the existing law allowed to hold 
 " an interest " — as our law terms it— in the concern 
 exceeding 5,000 lire (£200). The estabhshments manu- 
 facture their own sulphuric acid, as is usual in Italy. 
 Since their formation they have combined for common 
 action to a Federation which, however, leaves every 
 several concern to manage its own business, sell its pro- 
 
54 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 ducts and answer its responsibility for itself. Opinion 
 — and accordingly practice — is still divided upon the 
 point of a binding undertaking to be exacted from share- 
 holding members to buy a certain minimum quantity 
 of the product annually from the works. Obviously, 
 Professor Raineri, the President of the Union of Italian 
 Agricultural Co-operative Societies, and late Minister 
 of Agriculture, is right in maintaining that such under- 
 taking there should be. Without possessing an assured 
 market for its output a manufactory could not be certain 
 of seUing its goods or able nearly enough to proportion 
 its output to its sale. However the societies which have 
 nokt put such stipulation into their rules have thus far 
 not suffered by the omission. 
 
 There can be no doubt that, in respect of the manu- 
 facture of superphosphate the Italians foimd themselves 
 on strong ground for this reason that in their markets 
 the raw material, being shipped from Africa, is remarkably 
 cheap. However it is, of course, quite as cheap for non- 
 co-operative makers as for co-operative. Italian success 
 in this matter is mainly due to loyal membership, business- 
 like organisation and businesshke management, the 
 application of which coincides with a period of agricultural 
 risorgimento, in which, under the stimulus of new technical 
 education, far larger quantities of artificial fertiUsers 
 are used than was previously the case. Undoubtedly there 
 are other articles which co-operative societies — or rather, 
 let us say, which unions of co-operative societies — might 
 with advantage manufacture for themselves. And the 
 subject of the manufacture of one's own goods is one 
 which may well engage the attention of agricultural 
 co-operators. 
 
55 
 
 IV.— DISPOSAL OF PRODUCE. 
 
 General Remarks. 
 
 " Supply " has just been spoken of- as the " easiest " 
 form of Co-operation to practise. But, easy as it is, 
 and usefid as it is, in the appUcation of Co-operation 
 to'S Agriculture it can scarcely rank as the most 
 important. The palm of importance undoubtedly belongs 
 to the ultimate disposal of the produce raised,, 
 whether such be effected by direct sale, or in a more 
 round-about way by means of previous transforma- 
 tion into a more readily marketable commodity. In 
 our present aspect the two things come under the same 
 head. This is the task by its accomplishment of which 
 Agricultural Co-operation will ultimately have to be content 
 to be judged. Buying fertilisers, feeding stuffs, machinery 
 and the rest of it cheap is of comparatively httle value, so 
 long as marketing does not crown the whole process with 
 a remunerative return. 
 
 This fact it is which marks off Co-operation in Agri- 
 culture so strikingly from what we have become accustomed 
 to look upon as " industrial " Co-operation — the Co- 
 operation spread out over the length and breadth of this 
 country, in the shape of the famihar and successful " Store." 
 In truth there is nothing specifically " industrial " about 
 such Co-operation. Rural folk may practise it as welL 
 There is specifically " industrial " Co-operation, no doubt. 
 But that is co-operative Production, which democratises 
 Industry, emancipates the worker and makes him his 
 own employer. Distribution has only very little to do 
 with " Industry " — and that httle in a non-co-operative 
 
56 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 form, as with an ordinary employer of wholly depende 
 wage labour. It simply enables the man who has work 
 in non-co-operative industry to make his wages go farth 
 It is well that Agricultural Co-operation should ha 
 been brought in at the point at which it has, in order tl; 
 the difference between productive and consuming C 
 operation should be made ftilly clear, and that a perft 
 heap of misconceptions should be removed, to which t 
 absolute domination of Distribution has given ris 
 and at the same time that a firm and enduring link shoi 
 be forged to bind the two branches of Co-operation mc 
 thoroughly together and so consolidate the co-operati 
 movement. However much Manchester and Glasgi 
 may in former stages have resented the intrusion 
 independent Production and the advance of Co-operati 
 Credit, decrying them as " individualist," they cam 
 reject Co-operative Agriculture — ^however essentially " 
 dividualistic," in their narrow sense, it is bound to be 
 seeing that such Agriculture, setthng a rural democra 
 in independent occupation on the land, each cultivai 
 under his own particular vine and figtree, represei 
 the very ideal ultimate aim of the Rochdale programn 
 Co-operation in Agriculture is bound to be " individualis 
 securing to every worker the just reward for his o' 
 particular labour, though " coUectivist " at the same tii 
 as of necessity settling him in self-governing, self-sustaini 
 groups. It is bound to be productive. And, bei 
 productive, it shares with industrial Production- 
 contrasted with Distribution (which possesses reco 
 mendations of its own) — this distinctive merit that 
 economically assisting the co-operative worker, it at i 
 same time also improves him as a worker, makes him bet 
 instructed, better skilled, more resourceful, more valual 
 to himself, to his circle and to his country. It is a gr( 
 distinction to productive Co-operation to be able 
 
DISPOSAL OF PRODUCE. 57 
 
 claim— and to maintain— this. Co-operative Production 
 compels him who practises it to think, to calculate before- 
 hand, to acquire technical knowledge and put it to 
 practical use. There are no classes, no lectures, no books 
 which can improve him in the same way. The business 
 of the society is his business ; he is responsible for it. 
 And responsibihty is, as Sir Robert Morier has justly 
 observed, " the soul of all good work." The working 
 together of many minds, putting to practical application 
 in a concrete form what they may or may not have learnt 
 theoretically from others, brings the point thoroughly 
 home to every one and leaves an indehble impression 
 upon each mind. And towards that effect the disposal 
 of produce contributes a substantial share ; for it marks 
 the result of the process. 
 
 It will be necessary, of course, to discuss disposal 
 in detail, as affecting distinct descriptions of produce, 
 which have differently to be dealt with. Not unduly 
 to multiply repetitions, accordingly, it will be well to 
 deal here with the points affecting disposal in general 
 only, and with brevity. 
 
 The aim of the co-operative disposal of produce is, 
 of course, to provide a remunerative, but above aU things 
 a permanently available market. The price there realised 
 ought to be as good as can be obtained ; and, with the 
 eliminaton of at least one middleman — in the majority 
 of cases more — there ought to be no difficulty about 
 making it good in the long run. However the main object 
 will be permanency and continual availableness ; for the 
 producer wants to be sure that he will be able at any 
 reasonable time to convert his produce into money ; he 
 wants to be able to calculate beforehand that, whatever 
 befall, his corn or milk or meat or eggs wiU sell, and sell 
 at a fair price. The real object of the German " corn- 
 house " or granary is less to enable the local farmer to 
 
58 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 take advantage of any special opportunity for turning 
 an extra penny, than to provide him with an ever ready 
 market, in which he may dehver at his own time, knowing 
 that he will obtain a steady, fair price. So it is in the case 
 of the Swiss " Cheeseries " ; and so, in effect, in all other 
 agricultural sale societies. Accordingly it is a mistake 
 to make a practice of snatching at occasional speculative 
 gains, which only unsettle the market and destroy con- 
 fidence. Steadiness on one side is not attainable if there 
 is not steadiness also on the other. Attempts to " rig 
 the market " have cost co-operative grain-seUing societies 
 in Germany much money. 
 
 Now a steady market, obviously, is to be gained by 
 quality and regularity of supply. For insuring the former, 
 as wiU be shown, Co-operation stands in a particularly 
 favourable position. The latter consideration brings 
 into renewed prominence the point already insisted upon, 
 that there must be loyalty to their society among members, 
 and that it is the society's business to try to make sure 
 that there will be such. Wherever that canon of Co- 
 operation has been sinned against, the result of loss and 
 disappointment has never failed to show itself. In the 
 case of perishable articles, such as milk and eggs, the 
 necessity of possessing a continuous outlet for goods 
 is self-apparent. But it holds good no less in respect 
 of other comrnodities, even corn, which is in a sense the 
 farmer's " ready cash." Obviously arrangements wiU 
 in each csise have to be accommodated to the article to 
 be dealt in and, in a higher degree still, to local circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Wherever produce can be satisfactorily got rid of 
 in its natural shape, farmers will probably much prefer 
 that form of disposal. However there are cases in which 
 transformation possesses distinct advantages, either as 
 raising the volume of net return, or as securing for the pro- 
 
DISPOSAL OF PRODUCE. 
 
 59 
 
 ■ducer out of his produce some valuable by-product for use 
 in his farm — let alone that it provides larger employment for 
 labour. Whatever be the object for which transformation 
 is resorted to, Co-operation greatly facilitates — and it should 
 cheapen — its application, because it gives access to it to the 
 small cultivator. The sugar-beet grower and the co-operative 
 cultivator of flowers on the " C6te d'Azur " find that 
 they can get more value out of their produce by first 
 turning it into sugar or else perfumery. Our British corn 
 grower crushes his grain into grist, he may even grind it 
 into flour ; and abroad his brother farmer sometimes goes 
 so far as to bake it into bread, because he knows that 
 after the addition of the requisite labour he will obtain 
 a better return. The Danish pig keeper cures his pigs 
 into bacon, because it would be hopeless to try to get rid of 
 them in any other shape. The German and French potato 
 grower turn the starch of their potatoes severally into 
 spirit or into commercial starch because, after paying 
 them about the same price for the potatoes used, that 
 leaves them in possession of nourishing winter fodder 
 where, under the system of stall feeding, winter fodder 
 is particularly valuable. Without Co-operation that 
 certainly must he altogether beyond the power of the small 
 man. And in general, it wiU have to be admitted that 
 in opening access to such employment of farm and garden 
 produce to the small man, — who by himself evidently 
 could not practise it — Co-operation performs an exceedingly 
 thankworthy service. 
 
 In the assistance which Co-operation has it in its power 
 to give in the disposal of produce, there are several elements 
 combining which go to make it effective. 
 
 The first is the creation of " bulk," which, under all 
 circumstances, makes commodities more marketable in 
 the long run and secures to the seller a better command 
 of the market. The German " Comhouse " is effective 
 
6o CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 in raising the price of grain in the local market, because 
 it answers for a substantial quantity, and because, thanks 
 to such quantity, it has, in addition to the local, also the 
 entire outside market, at a distance, open to it, which 
 is closed to the small producer acting by himself. The 
 French fruit and vegetable grower could never have 
 attempted to send his strawberries, asparagus and like 
 articles to England by special fast trains and boats, but 
 for the considerable quantities to be moved, thanks to 
 his Co-operation. 
 
 The second effective element in the assistance given 
 is the systematic and, to coin a word, " guaranteeable " 
 improvement of the quaUty of the article dealt in, 
 which Co-operation is in a position to ensure. It 
 is by quality and certainty of regulcir supply that these 
 articles of agricultural produce can secure a steady and 
 remunerative sale. We observe this in the better market 
 commanded severally by Danish, as compared with 
 Irish, eggs and butter. It is the Danish winter supply 
 that makes the difference. And Co-operation is, by the 
 disciphne which the many of the same class, acting in 
 unison, are in a position to enforce upon each single 
 member, in a position to ensure these qualities more 
 effectually than any other power. It cannot tolerate 
 any negligence, such as a dealer might conceivably be 
 prevailed upon to condone in some exceptional instance. 
 The interest at stake is too great and too easily prejudiced. 
 We are better off in this country than many of our neigh- 
 bours in respect of the general trustworthiness of our 
 farmers, who may for the most part be trusted to deliver 
 up to sample, which farmers abroad have not been found 
 to do with equal regularity. Abroad the standing com- 
 plaint of organisers of co-operative sale in early stages is 
 that farmers will not deliver up to sample. In none 
 of the — after all only small — ^transactions that we have 
 
DISPOSAL OF PRODUCE. 6t 
 
 thus far had in this country through the Agricultural 
 Organisation Society has the same complaint been made. 
 We have not yet reaUy organised such service co-opera- 
 tively. However we have disposed of single lots, say, of 
 com, which have invariably given satisfaction. Nor 
 do purchasers appear to have been wronged in respect 
 of other goods. But that is not by any means all that 
 is required, say, when it comes to butter, or milk, or eggs. 
 In these cases attention must, under the co-operative 
 practice, be carried into minutiae, and it is possible 
 for this to be done, because every member knows that 
 his fellow member's neglect must mean loss to himself — 
 and that not necessarily loss confined to merely one de- 
 Uvery, but possibly to the society's reputation, the value 
 of its " brand," or " trademark," which he has laboriously 
 helped to raise to its zenith by long patience and pains. 
 Its reputation and the pubhc recognition of its " brand " 
 are what reaUy a co-operative sale society may most 
 reasonably hope to benefit its members by in the matter 
 of price and regularity of sale. 
 
 The question is often put forward, in what precise 
 manner a society had best proceed for putting its 
 goods upon the market. And in spite of repeated 
 and glaring failures — ^not in the late Lord Winchilsea's 
 case only — people appear not a httle inclined to hark back 
 to the questionable practice of estabhshing dep6ts, that 
 is, retail shops, in which a society, or a union of societies, 
 is to offer its produce for sale in competition with the 
 retail traders. That indicates a rather serious miscon- 
 ception of the sale society's proper ftmctions and capacity, 
 such as has rarely failed, where indulged in, to lead to 
 mischief. Agricultural co-operators are producers, standing 
 on a level with manufacturers in industrial business, 
 and as such they may hope to acquire adequate competence 
 to serve them for the purpose of sale of a particular kind. 
 
■62 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Now manufacturers do not, except in quite peculiar cases, 
 sell retail. It is not their business. They are not trained 
 to it. Accordingly they do not imderstand it. It requires 
 altogether different capacity from that which they them' 
 selves possess. There is risk and speculation in it which 
 in prudence co-operators must do their best to avoid — 
 more particularly on unknown ground. The professional 
 salesman understands the retail market. He knows 
 how to read its sjmiptoms and to estimate its wants ; 
 he knows also how to safeguard himself when facing risk 
 and embarking in speculation. The two classes of business 
 are as distinct as Macaulay's two favourite specimen 
 caUings of bakers and piano makers. And the retail 
 trader is there to assist and serve the manufacturer, just 
 as the sculptor or the stonemason helps the marble- 
 quarryman to enhance the selling value of his blocks by 
 shaping into figures or moulding-stones what the other 
 rough-hews out of the quarry. It is quite enough to hope 
 to train a farmer to become a good wholesale producer 
 and seller to the retail market. For a retail seller he 
 appears to be, of men of aU calhngs, the last person cut out. 
 The retail trader is the producer's necessary purchaser, 
 who will serve him best if he is not provoked to hostility, 
 such as an attempt at competition— likely to prove futile 
 in the case of an agricultural society — is sure to arouse. 
 It is the failure to realise this point which has brought 
 so many co-operative productive societies to grief. The 
 collapse of those great German " comhouses," which 
 has given, co-operative grain-seUing temporarily a bad 
 name, is in most cases distinctly traceable to the " shoe- 
 maker " not being content to " stick to his last." These 
 societies would embark in speculative business for the 
 sake of gain. They tried to " rig the market." They 
 flattered themselves that they could make " corners " 
 and dictate prices — and they failed. So did the German 
 
DISPOSAL OF PRODUCE. 63 
 
 vinegrowers' societies fail when they attempted to beard 
 the retailing Hon in his den of great popular centres and 
 sell by the bottle and the glass. In so doing they got 
 beyond their depth. The commercial leaders of the 
 •enterprise were not equal to the task which they had set 
 themselves to accomplish. Their failure certainly ought 
 not to be allowed to pass unconsidered. 
 
 There are only two classes of agricultural produce, 
 thus far, in respect of which, for special reasons, easily 
 to be discerned, retail trade by co-operative societies 
 has answered ; and even in their cases only partially by 
 the maintenance of dep6ts or shops. (For the markets 
 and sales of live stock, which are altogether to be recom- 
 raended wherever conditions favour them, are evidently 
 not to be brought under this head.) Those two articles 
 are eggs and milk. And the reasons why they form an 
 ■exception are, in the first place, that in dealing with 
 ■commodities of so highly perishable a nature time has to 
 be husbanded and there can be no question of carrying 
 them from shop to shop ; and, in the second, that the 
 ■control required to ensure what makes a good market 
 of necessity has in their case to be exercised at the 
 productive head quarters, instead of at the retail end 
 ■of the process. The crucial point in all sale is the 
 control of quaUty. In the case of other agricultural 
 produce, down to the rather perishable article of fruit, 
 such control is naturally exercised by the consumer or 
 in his place by the retailer— acting with a distinct responsi- 
 bility and interest to be careful— either of whom can 
 distinguish before purchase between good and bad. 
 When it comes to milk and eggs, we know from the two 
 proverbs. Cockney and classical, viz.—" eggs is eggs " 
 and " non tarn lac lacti simile " that control at the buying 
 end is impossible, except it be after the event, in a punitive 
 Tvay, because the requisite criteria are only in gross cases 
 
64 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 visible to the consumer's eye. Such control cannot be 
 left to a hired servant, wljo has no interest in safeguarding 
 quality, such as the retailer has in the value of his business, 
 and the dairy or egg society in its trade. It is accordingly 
 the society, in which the responsibiUty for quality resides,, 
 which has to carry out the control, testing and examining 
 the milk and "candling" the eggs. 
 
 The matter admits of an easy practical test. Agri- 
 cultural " Depots " have been tried in all parts of Europe. 
 Under favourable conditions they have answered in such 
 exceptional cases as the sale of milk and of eggs, which 
 stand upon a footing entirely of their own and in which 
 co-operative retail trade has frequently been found to- 
 answer. Even in these undertakings, however — ^thougk 
 the risk may be small — there is risk — such as a co-operative 
 society must on principle be chary of incurring. There is 
 this point to be considered. Collect as much agricultmrai 
 produce produced by yourself, in conjunction with others,, 
 to be offered for sale, as you will — the assortment will 
 still only remain restricted. Now, at the present time 
 the popular tendency in sale trade is all in the direction 
 of massing much together, varying the contents of a shop 
 to the uttermost. It is — rightly — in production that 
 specialisation is studied. The agricultural stores of Lyons 
 and Milan have found themselves driven to supplementing 
 their own goods, produced by their members or society, 
 with other articles, bought expressly for resale, just to 
 fill the shop and bring customers to the till. That in 
 itself indicates a fault in the choice of a vocation made. 
 These societies had got out of their proper province. 
 
 Take the following cases, which speak for themselves ! 
 
 In distributive co-operation, in wine drinking countries,, 
 there is no article which sells better and more surely than 
 wine. The cellarage provided in the great stores of Basel,. 
 Milan, Paris, Rome and Winterthur, keeps steadily" 
 
dTsposal of produce. 65 
 
 increasing. The Unione Militare of Rome used to gain 
 so much on its wine— it may do so still — as to be able, out 
 of such profit, earned in a great measure from non-member 
 customers, to cheapen appreciably the price of accoutre- 
 ments and other military requisites sold to officers who 
 were members. In productive societies of vinegrowers 
 and wine pressers, on the other hand, sale has been found 
 a difficult process, often leading to loss — loss in some 
 cases heavy. The Vignerons Litres de Maraussan who, 
 like all French socialist co-operators, have given evidence 
 of much practical sense, have done so more markedly in 
 no respect than in that of entrusting the sale of their 
 produce to a distributive society, the Magasin de Gros 
 of Paris. That sells their wine easily. 
 
 Once more, co-operative slaughterhouses have proved 
 very successful in the hands of distributive societies, at 
 any rate in some characteristic cases— more particularly 
 in sausage eating countries, where butchering becomes 
 for the most part pork butchering. In the hands of 
 societies of producers of meat, they have turned out 
 dead failures. 
 
 Again, there is co-operative baking, which has been 
 tried both as a productive and as a distributive process. 
 We have magnificent co-operative bakeries in this island 
 maintained by distributive societies on the distributive 
 plan. They answer admirably. So do similar enterprises 
 abroad. The bakery business of the weUknown Vooruit 
 of Ghent has been the making of the great socialist co-opera- 
 tive society, run hard as it was by the oppositionist 
 Volkshelang. And in France distributive co-operative 
 bakeries are numerous and popular, more particularly 
 in rural districts, remedying as they do at any rate to some 
 extent the artificial appreciation of bread, so hard for poor 
 people to bear, brought about by what M. Paul Leroy 
 Beaulieu has termed the " insensate " (msense) tariff. 
 
66 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Taken in hand by producers — this has been frequently 
 tried in Germany — co-operative baking has proved any- 
 thing but a success, almost invariably leading to loss. 
 
 A productive society should keep to its crepida of pro- 
 duction and sale through what may be called the wholesale 
 trade. That is what ovx masters in the matter, the Danish 
 co-operative Egg, and Butter and Bacon societies do. 
 That is what the Eastern Counties Co-operative Farmers 
 and the Blairgowrie fruit growers do ; and in both cases 
 with distinct success. Their headquarters is, by telephone 
 and telegraph, in communication with the various sale 
 centres. Its expert officers know where to direct de- 
 liveries. By collecting and acting upon the advice received 
 they avoid a glut and resulting depreciation. And their 
 skilled agents seU their goods delivered, on the chosen 
 spots, generally with admirable results. That is the proper 
 way of proceeding. There is little — ^it may be said no — 
 risk in this. It does not place the society of farmers in 
 competition — ^in which, for not a few purposes, it must 
 find itself overmatched — ^with skilled retail sellers. It 
 supphes these and thereby propitiates them. And in. 
 consequence it profits by them. In the course of time 
 we may hope to do a large business through our distributive 
 societies, which are altogether in their proper province 
 in selUng retail. That may not absorb all our highest 
 class articles. But it wiU go a long way. Thanks to the 
 discipline which we are enabled to exercise over our indi- 
 vidual producers J we hold in our hands a powerful instru- 
 ment for commanding a sale at high prices. That is our 
 " brand," which, under proper conditions, guarantees- 
 quality such as we can enforce better than any one else. 
 At the Paris Holies co-operative eggs habitually fetch a 
 higher price than all others. In Hanover, which is in 
 respect of Agricultural Co-operation the foremost province 
 in Germany, the "brand " of the "Guelph Horse " ranks- 
 
DISPOSAL OF PRODUCE. 67 
 
 as the most effective recommendation of agricultural 
 produce of all kinds. The Nederlandsch Boter Controle 
 and, even before its introduction, the " Dutch Bridge " 
 sold butter so marked at top prices. In Belgium butter 
 from co-operative dairies commonly sells at about 3d. 
 more than boerenboter, coming from non-co-operative 
 dairies. It is by our "brand," and that for which the 
 "brand" stands, the guarantee of best produce, that, 
 by the side of skilled direction to proper markets and expert 
 dealing with re-sellers, we must attempt to conquer, not 
 by the retail seller's apron and slate, which suit neither 
 our rustic form nor our plough-hardened hands. 
 
68 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 v.— CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 
 
 There is no branch of Co-operation which has rendered 
 morevaluable service to Agriculture than Co-operative Dairy- 
 ing. And although, no doubt, its practice requires particular 
 care and vigilance, it cannot be contended that its organisa- 
 tion presents more than ordinary difficulties. Nor is 
 its ultility at all near being exhausted — certainly not in 
 this country, where as yet we stand only on the thresh- 
 old of the movement. 
 
 A whole world, in truth, seems to he between dairying 
 of the present day and dairying of preco-operative times — 
 when the milk was left in pans for the cream to rise, and 
 the dairymaid's "neat hands" were trusted to turn out 
 butter to pass muster in the market ; when we judged 
 the yielding capacity of cows by Guenon's " escutcheons," 
 and looked to preparations like Tomhnson's "Butter 
 powder " to obtain the maximum of butter-fat out of 
 •cream. 
 
 It is, in the main, the Centrifugal Cream Separator, 
 of course, which has conjured up this remarkable trans- 
 formation — the separator, coupled with technicaljeducation, 
 with cheap ice and refrigerators, and a taste refined to 
 fastidiousness among our consumers. 
 
 But all these things could not have exercised their 
 full effect if we had not learnt that for their proper 
 and profitable application quantity is required, which 
 ■quantity is only to be secured by Co-operation ; and 
 that even quantity wiU fail to produce them if there is not 
 that vigilant oversight, that strict holding of every suppUer 
 to rigorous accoimt which only Co-operation, with its 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 69 
 
 principle of "One for All, and All for One," will evoke. 
 Under no other form of organisation could the same stem 
 ■discipline be exercised ; under no other form would it be 
 submitted to. It is the direct personal interest of all in 
 the conduct of every one which enforces it. 
 
 The dairy to-day produces more money. The con- 
 sequence is that more cows are kept, and that accordingly 
 a distinctly remunerative branch of Agriculture — which 
 was formerly almost allowed to languish as a mere by- 
 industry — ^is being pushed, to the benefit both of the farm 
 and the country. But that is not all. Co-operation applied 
 to dairjang, an industry in which its effects are very 
 visible, is found to beget everywhere a taste for further 
 ■Co-operation, with which the first readily allies itself. 
 In the wake of dairying we see co-operative purchase, 
 sale, work of every kind, starting up. The list of by- 
 industries practised abroad in conjunction with dairying, 
 and really "growing out of " it, is truly astonishing. And 
 for one most important branch of such other Co-operation 
 more in particular — that is Distribution, Store trading — 
 the supply of milk and butter affords a most powerful 
 help. If we want to extend Co-operative Distribution, 
 accordingly, let us by all means push Co-operative Dairy- 
 ing ! With regard to this point, the history of the great 
 Co-operative Store of Basel should be instructive. 
 
 That great Store, which is to-day one of the largest 
 :and most successful in the world, was practically built 
 up upon the supply of good milk. In Basel, amid the 
 fat vale meadows and the fragrant mountain pastures 
 •of Switzerland, the milk supphed was bad, because farmers 
 iad no inducement to supply it of better quality. The 
 iounders of the Store — mainly schoolmasters, that is, 
 men of education and civilised tastes — with some trouble 
 made provision for good milk. They contracted with 
 farmers within a wide radius for milk which must be tested 
 
70 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. • 
 
 and the housing, feeding, and treatment of the cattle produc- 
 ing which must be kept under strict observation, so as to 
 insure a palatable and hygienic product. And all Basel 
 at once came to the Store for its milk. And coming for 
 milk it came also for other things. 
 
 There is, indeed, a reverse side to such action of the 
 Store. But for this once more Co-operation was foimd 
 to provide an effective remedy, such as, in a less forcible 
 way, we have also seen appUed with success in this country. 
 The Basel Store oppressed the farmers who dealt with it. 
 Having the whip hand of them, it cut down their prices 
 below what was reasonable. It has been calculated that 
 in this way it pocketed about £8,000 a year that was not 
 due to it. Something of the same sort has happened more 
 recently in Lancashire, and under the lead of Mr.Fitzherbert 
 Brockholes the farmers have combined to meet oppression 
 with revolt, which has led to an equitable revision of 
 terms*. In Switzerland the Peasants' Confederation did 
 the same thing on a much larger scale in challenging the 
 Basel Store, and other consumers with it. There was 
 serious war, which lasted some weeks and cost both sides 
 substantial sacrifices. However, in the end the Peasants 
 triumphed — and the Basel Store, paying now a reasonable 
 price, is once more the largest consumer of the Peasants' 
 milk. The Peasants' victory, achieved by combination 
 over the Condensed Milk Factories, was even more signal. 
 The factories were brought to their knees and forced ta 
 capitulate. 
 
 And a similar, briUiant victory has more recently 
 been gained in the same country over the dealers in cheese, 
 who had formed themselves into a "ring," by combined 
 action among farmers producing the famed " Emmenthal " 
 cheese (we call it Gruyere, but only the best brands are 
 here referred to), whose co-operative society now sells such 
 cheese directly to the importers elsewhere. 
 
 • A similar movement is now in nmo'ress in Cheshi™ 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. /r 
 
 It deserves to be noticed, as has been recorded in the 
 Oesterreichische Genossenschafispresse, that everjrwhere 
 where milk supphers have shown the grit to combine and 
 stand out for terms, they have managed to obtain a fair 
 price — a better price than others. 
 
 From these incidents farmers will be able to gather 
 what large power for enforcing justice by combination 
 they possess. 
 
 However, they ought at the same time to be warned 
 that there are limits to such action. In Berhn it was the 
 farmers — of a strongly agrarian persuasion — ^who, forming 
 a "ring," enforced an unduly high price. Naturally the 
 consumers rebelled, and eventually carried the day. 
 
 The method of Co-operation here to be advocated 
 is of a far more pacific character. There is no fighting in 
 it, and none is needed. And yet it carries with it sub- 
 stantial profit and useful instruction. It is merely union 
 in production, which, as in fighting, means strength. 
 
 The mere utihty of collecting milk from many little 
 herds for common working, so as to ensure economy, and, 
 moreover, uniformity of product — which in itself is an 
 asset — was not a dif&cult lesson to learn. The Swiss and 
 the French of the Jura have practised it in a rudimentary 
 fashion from very early times, probably since the thirteenth 
 — or it may even be, the twelfth — century. The form of 
 Co-operation then adopted was elementary indeed, and 
 in many instances it remains so stiU. Originally it con- 
 sisted in members taking their several turns at making 
 cheese on their own farms, of the milk of all— since it was 
 held that there must be milk from fifty or seventy cows 
 at a time to make cheese-making worth the trouble— and 
 distributing the finished product roughly in the same 
 proportion in which the raw material had been contributed. 
 Even in the present day it is not at all uncommon for 
 members to deliver their milk by measure and receive 
 
72 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 the cheese and whey back in the same proportion. Then 
 people hit upon the plan, which is stiU not a Uttle honoured 
 in practice, of keeping a common cheese-making plant 
 for the use of all in turn. There are some thousands of 
 fruitieres stiU on the Swiss cind French mountain tops^- 
 about 1800 in France alone (there are others in the 
 Pyrenees, worked on the same principle, and passing by 
 the name of cabanes or bavaques) — and in very sooth the 
 credit of having first organised co-operative dairying as 
 we know it of right belongs to Switzerland. But it was 
 not the old fashioned fruitieres on the mountain tops 
 which produced it, but the homesteads of the dales. It 
 was in the village of Kiesen, near Berne, that in 1815 the 
 first co-operative dairy of modem tjrpe — ^rudimentary as 
 it was — -was organised. And from that little village 
 Co-operative Dairying has spread out over nearly all the 
 world — in our own case filtering through the Danish 
 chum. However, Denmark itself did not take up such 
 dair3dng till more than sixty years later. To ourselves, 
 superior nation that we are, it needed something more 
 convincing than mere logic to bring the lesson of Co-opera- 
 tion home. It was the uniform, standardised butter 
 coming to us, in quantities growing larger every year, 
 from Denmark, and later from the Netherlands, cutting 
 out our own, which taught us what good there is in Co-opera- 
 tive Dair5dng. The cream separator was then already 
 in the field, ensuring the valuable but for a long time ignored 
 benefit of separating cream, not only far more expeditiously 
 and completely than the old pan, reducing the quantity 
 of butterfat left in the residue to as little as one tenth 
 per cent., and even less — for one-twentieth is on record — 
 but also of separating the cream from the milk in its jresh 
 state, so as to yield a fresher product. It is the quick 
 operating, and the keeping the milk and cream cool at 
 the proper time — and heating them at the proper time — 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 73 
 
 quite as much as the mere economy effected by operating 
 upon a large quantity, that has brought about the 
 remarkable improvement in butter-making, which, although 
 we in England find that there is not as much money in 
 it as in other forms of disposing of milk— in its unchurned 
 state or as cheese— for the present still occupies a dominat- 
 ing position in dairying. And, whatever be its business 
 aspect. Co-operation distinctly and appreciably improves 
 butter-making by the perfecting of quahty and the 
 cheapening of production. 
 
 The subsequent refinements, outside the dairy proper, 
 followed as a matter of course. Once farmers began to 
 calculate, and to measure their milk, the suggestion 
 rapidly forced itself upon them that it is more profitable 
 to have a good cow than a bad one. "There is quite a 
 rent between the 5deld of a good cow and a bad one." 
 So stated Mr. Drysdale (Secretary of the Scottish Agri- 
 cultural Organisation Society) in the Small Holdings 
 Inquiry. The "Milk Register" crowded out Guenon's 
 "escutcheons," and the tester supplemented the register. 
 The advance made in the keeping of good milking cows, 
 and eliminating bad ones, is really very considerable — 
 elsewhere than in this country. From breed to keep, 
 to feeding, housing, tending, was in each case only a step. 
 The "Control" committees and societies — which are 
 far more than the mere "milk testing" organisations, 
 as which they are sometimes given out in this country — 
 brought the matter up to its proper level, teaching people 
 how to utilise knowledge and make the same quantity 
 of fodder and amount of manual labour go twice the old 
 distance-^which is a lesson that we have still to learn. 
 That involved submission to inspection, to control, to 
 regulation often minute. To read the "Directions" of 
 a great modern dairy institution like the Co-operative 
 Milk Supply Society of Copenhagen, or the Dresdner 
 
74 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Milchversorgungsanstalt. the most modem institution of its 
 kind, one feels tempted to ask : What liberty is there 
 left to a cow-keeper ? He must not feed this or that 
 or the other — not even brewer's grains and green tares, 
 which we old stagers used to consider ideal fodder — he 
 must submit to this and that restriction, cool his milk to 
 the proper temperature before delivering, dehver in a 
 regulation way ; and failure to do so involves merciless 
 rejection of his milk. No force except Co-operation 
 could have rendered him so amenable. But as a set off 
 we find that in Denmark co-operative creameries almost 
 monopohse the dairy trade; multiplying and growing, 
 and that their produce commands top prices. These 
 are no fortuitous results. It is the man compeUing him- 
 self through his society that makes so docile and willing 
 a pupil of him. Control, dictation, discipline, all comes 
 in a bearable shape when it comes from oneself. 
 
 Co-operative dairying, as observed, came originally 
 from Switzerland, passing, like a caterpillar, through two 
 phases. Switzerland, being a country of herds, turned 
 out excellent manipulators of milk and cream — mainly 
 for cheese, but also for butters-long before the excellent 
 Dairy School of Riitti was .set up. These men not 
 unaccountably considered it worth while turning their 
 skill to good account for their own profit ; and in this way 
 a semi-co-operative institution took its rise, which is stiU 
 fairly represented in Switzerland — in societies in which 
 Co-operation among cow-keepers is carried only to the 
 point of collective dehvery of milk to an expert cheese 
 or butter maker, who deals with it further for his own 
 profit. Such inchoate Co-operation is also known in 
 France, where among other institutions, a famed creamery 
 of Isigny practises it. A similar institution, not on co-opera- 
 tive fines, but greatly appreciated among owners of large 
 estates, which has served directly and very effectively to 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 75 
 
 plane the way for co-operative dairying, has become very 
 general in Germany. Many landed proprietors there 
 used to conclude contracts with a "Swiss "—as the skilled 
 dairyman came to be currently caUed (the French caU 
 him fruitier)~iov the regular supply of aU their milk 
 except what might be required for their own farm or 
 household, at a settled price, the proprietor setting up 
 the buildings and supplying the plant. And with the 
 same "Swiss" adjoining estate owners, farmers and 
 peasantry would likewise contract for their milk at a 
 fixed price. The proximity of a "Schweizer " (Swiss) 
 came to be reckoned a distinct advantage to a property 
 put up for sale and would in some degree influence its 
 price. From Germany this same system spread into 
 Denmark, among the owners of large estates. It is there 
 still represented by the Heeregaardsmejerier. In this way 
 was opinion prepared for the evolution which subsequently 
 took place ; and although there was no centrifugal cream 
 separator yet in the field, dairying came to be studied 
 as a brsmch of husbandry to be improved. 
 
 Meanwhile, we in England continued very backward. 
 The "Milk Journal," appearing about 1870 — when the 
 . " Aylesbury Dairy Company" and the "Dairy Reform Com- 
 pany " had recently come upon the scene, with purer 
 milk — and an article on "Town Milk" appearing in one 
 of the Reviews, had momentarily fixed attention upon 
 the subject and awakened interest. But the pubhc mind 
 did not really take the matter up tiU after the International 
 Dairy Exhibition at Hamburgh in 1877, when Professor 
 Sheldon, by the Hght of what had been there exhibited 
 and taught, urged it upon the agricultural world as a 
 matter of importance. At that time the original Centri- 
 fugal Cream Separator had just come on the market, 
 doing about a twentieth part of the work of what, in its 
 more perfected form, the Alfa-Laval power separator 
 
76 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE, 
 
 accomplishes now. The subject then came to be studied. 
 The British Dairy Farmers' Association, formed in 1876, 
 took up teaching work ; technical education was entered 
 upon ; in the course of time Sir Th. Dyke Acland started 
 his model dairy, which frequenters of the great Agricul- 
 tural Shows of the eighties are likely to remember ; and 
 in this way improved dairying came to be placed under 
 public observation. About the mid-eighties the first 
 Lord Hampden (Speaker Brand) tried his hand at Glynde 
 upon a "co-operative " dairy, rather of the old Swiss and 
 German type than the modem. Of Canon Bagot's little 
 experiment with "Irish " cream and butter there is scarcely 
 any need to speak, though the Canon's glib tongue kept 
 the matter well to the fore at the time. 
 
 While we were timidly groping our way, a great 
 transformation had taken place in Danish Agriculture. 
 In 1879 Prince Bismarck astonished the world by his 
 proclamation of Protection as the German policy of the 
 future, which " fiscal policy " he applied with such merci- 
 less severity as effectually to close German markets to 
 what had up to then been the staple produce of the northern 
 kingdom, that is, corn. Opportunely, in that very year, 
 was a cream separator of modem and improved type 
 exhib'ited at Berhn, which, acting like the rust on AchiUes' 
 spear, helped to heal the wound that that same Berhn 
 had first struck. The first co-operative dairy in Denmark 
 was opened in 1882. Repulsed by Germany, Danes 
 brought their produce to us ; and among ourselves, 
 gourmets that we are, their improved butter met with a 
 ready sale. Co-operative dairies accordingly increased 
 rapidly in number. Denmark is in the main a country 
 of small farms, and it was to their owners — in contradis- 
 tinction to owners of large estates, employing their own 
 "Swiss" — that the new movement appealed. Between 
 1886 and 1890 no fewer than 628 new co-operative dairies 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OP MILK. 
 
 IT 
 
 were set up. By 1909 there were 1157, employing the 
 ™ilk of 154,568 holdings and 1,059,956 cows, that is, 
 86 per cent, of the total number of holdings in Denmark 
 and 83 per cent, of the total number of cows, turning out 
 among them about 100,000,000 kilos of butter (out 
 of a total production of about 125,000,000 kilos in the 
 kingdom), paying the supphers of milk (2,620,ooo,oo& 
 kilos out of a total of 3,700,000,000 kilos, that is, more 
 than three-fourths) 227,000,000 Danish crowns (about 
 £12,611,111), in addition to about 23,000,000 crowns 
 (£1,280,000) for whole milk. The storm conjured up by 
 the Prussian .Eolus had been well weathered. While 
 Co-operative Dairying was rising up as on eagles' wings 
 the number of large estate non-co-operative dairies, which 
 in 1900 still stood at 264, had gone down to 90, and the 
 number of semi-co-operative dairies (dairies worked in 
 common, but not on co-operative hues), which are still 
 maintained mainly in Jutland and in LoUand-Falster,. 
 from 266 to 238. It is mainly small holdings — 85.9 per 
 cent, of those up to 12J acres, 88.9 per cent, of those up 
 to Z7\ acres, 90.7 per cent, of those up to 75 acres, and 
 87.9 per cent, of those under 150 acres — which are 
 answerable for co-operative dairying, whereas the two 
 other t57pes recruit themselves mainly among holdings 
 above 150 acres — the larger, non-co-operative dairies princi- 
 pally among such over 300 acres. 
 
 Such triumph of Co-operation, which, under our 
 present aspect, decidedly made Denmark in this matter the 
 premier country, by its own merits, soon came to act as 
 an illuminating example to all the world. Sweden took 
 up the co-operative practice with vigour and with ad- 
 mirable results. It may be called a cormtry of " cows," 
 for there is a cow there to every three inhabitants. And, 
 since in 1910 it exported no less than 21,749,540 kilos 
 of butter, of the value of about £2,000,000, into this 
 
78 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 country — in addition to a considerable quantity got rid 
 of to Germany — ^Danish example cannot be said to have 
 remained unfruitful in the more northern kingdom, where, 
 above all things, the " Control societies" have given 
 brilUant evidence of their utility. 
 
 Next came the Dutch, who are avowedly pupils of the 
 Danes — eminently docile pupils. Theirs likewise is 
 a country "of cows." Their peculiar breed of cattle, 
 nourished on those fat green pastures which extend hke 
 a huge carpet, far as the eye can reach, between canals 
 always dispensing freshness, has been long famed as a 
 specifically milk yielding variety. The Dutch took up 
 Co-operative Dairying — the financial results of which 
 appealed strongly to their calculating mind — in their 
 private independence, raising up zuivelvereenigingen, 
 which in due course they united into federations, 
 with an AU-Netherland Federation at the head of all. It is 
 the several vereenigingen or unions that test the butter 
 and supply the "brand," which has long since become 
 a very valuable asset. They also introduced instructive 
 butter shows and those most useful butter sales, at which 
 producers and dealers meet, not merely as buyers and 
 sellers, but as joint counsel-takers, examiners and ap- 
 praisers. The results obtained however soon presented 
 themselves to the Government as of so much national 
 importance that, like the Bavarian Government in the 
 matter of beer, it took up the supreme control — happily 
 with similarly good results — placing skilled technical 
 instructors, zuivelconsulenten, at the service of farmers, 
 and supplying a brand " Nederlandsck Botercontrole," 
 which is recognised as a guarantee — working so well that 
 there seems a probability of the same method (by means 
 of a stamp) being applied also to cheese. The butter- 
 shows with their two gradations — ^local and national — 
 are found particularly useful. 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 79 
 
 Germany is likewise unquestionably a pupil of 
 Denmark — having previously learned combined, as 
 ■distinguished from " co-operative," butter-making— from 
 Switzerland. Its admirably comprehensive co-operative 
 organisation, thus far not equalled anywhere, enabled 
 it to extend the practice largely, so as to make it to occupy 
 the first rank — with Austria following on similar hues— 
 in such Co-operation. And the scientific turn of its national 
 mind taught it to perfect machinery and methods until 
 its installations and its creamery instruction undoubtedly 
 <:ame to stand first in the world — although, by a curious 
 inconsistency (showing how insufficient even the most excel- 
 lent methods are when unaccompanied by proper practice) 
 its butter turned out is not, as so high an authority as 
 Creamery Instructor Pittius has quite recently admitted, 
 feneraUy of as high a standard as the Danish. 
 
 Nor has Danish example been lost upon France, which 
 now numbers about 700 co-operative dairies — besides about 
 1800 old-fashioned fruitieres. Such dairies are particularly 
 well represented in the two Charentes and in Poitou, 
 ■where the movement has taken firm root. 
 
 All this co-operative dairying has thus far consisted in 
 the main of butter making, vvdth cheese making following as 
 a good second. Co-operation being in the first instance 
 intended for the utilisation of produce at a distance from 
 markets, it is no more than natural that the products 
 selected for sale should have been the most portable, 
 <;ompact and durable that there are. Switzerland led with 
 ■cheese — its pecuhar native product, which up to recent 
 times, more particularly in the sixties and seventies, 
 commanded a high price. Of late its old Midas touch 
 has forsaken it and, like dairying elsewhere, Swiss is accord- 
 ingly seeking outlets in other directions. Denmark and 
 Sweden produced butter — with a little cheese, mainly 
 for exportation into Germany, where "thin milk cheese " 
 
8o CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 [Magermilchkdse), the making of which does not interfere 
 with buttermaking, is much prized. The Netherlands- 
 hkewise have gone on manufacturing their "Gouda," 
 and" Edam," not to speak of the sweet scented " Limburg," 
 which types continue to hold their own in the market. And 
 Germany made butter, with a fair quantity of "soft-" 
 cheese of the creamy kind to supply a growing taste for 
 such delicacy ; and also curds {Quark, in French caille- 
 hotte), made of separated milk, which enters largely inta 
 German cooking and baking, and is to some extent 
 converted into cheese. 
 
 In course of time however such one-article dairying^ 
 came to discover a seamy side — to which also a recent 
 writer in the "Journal of the Board of Agriculture," 
 describing the Skelldale Dairy in Yorkshire, has called 
 attention. All butter-making did not in every instance 
 any longer pay quite as it should. The matter has been 
 inquired into in Denmark and it has been found that 
 following the vogue in making butter is not ever5rwhere 
 sufficiently remunerative. 
 
 Parenthetically it may be here observed that another 
 graver defect was detected at the same time, of which we 
 have heard rumours also in Ireland. It does not directly 
 affect us in our present connection. But it distinctly 
 wants calling attention to. Some farmers, finding a new, 
 remunerative market, which previously they knew not, 
 opened to them for butter, took to starving their children 
 and their growing calves for the sake of their purses, 
 either substituting margarine for butter for home consump- 
 tion, or else substituting nothing at aU— distinctly so in 
 the case of the calves, whose rations of butterfat should 
 at any rate have been made up for by other fatty matter. 
 A Danish official Report, published in 1910, emphasizes the 
 fact that between 1888 and 1908 the consumption of 
 margarine went up in Denmark from two million to twenty- 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 8i 
 
 nine million kUos, and attributes the remarkable con- 
 current increase in the exportation of butter during that 
 time to this cause. The consequence was a falling off in 
 the physique — more particularly in the production of 
 bone — ^both in children and in growing cattle. 
 
 This might not have affected the buttermaking 
 farmer. But the suggestion of a falling off in profits 
 •distinctly did. And there were pastures new to tempt 
 him on hitherto untrodden tracks. Thus far the sale of 
 new mUk and cream had been left to smaU dealers and 
 farmers favourably situated for supplying a private 
 ■chentele by means of their carts. The appearance of 
 large Joint Stock Companies, hke the Aylesbury Dairy 
 Company, on the scene was a suggestive innovation. 
 But there was also another influence brought to bear, 
 the presence of which has akeady been called attention 
 to in connection with the Basel Store. Consumers of 
 milk grew squeamish in their taste. Like the consumers 
 of butter, they wanted a uniform product, and a product 
 of guaranteed quaUty, sweet and hygienically sound. 
 There were ugly rumours about of the spread of tuber- 
 culosis by milk. And Professor Ostertag, a great authority 
 in Germany, has shown that tuberculous milk from one 
 ■cow — ^more particularly if the tuberculosis be that of the 
 udder — ^will, if mixed with it, contaminate the milk of 
 ^'hundreds " of sound cows, so as to make it dangerously 
 tuberculous. Now careful treatment of milk, accom- 
 panied by testing and proper coohng and heating, inspection 
 of herds, sound feeding and so on, will produce milk of 
 the quality required. But it can only be so produced 
 in large quantities, such as justify the outlay upon 
 machinery, the emplojrment of skilled labour and what- 
 ever else is needed. These prerequisites clearly indicate 
 Co-operation as the proper method to practise. To many 
 among the pubhc Co-operation appeared under such point 
 
82 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 of view safer than Joint Stock management. For there 
 is more likelihood in a co-operative society of things being 
 well looked into. There is hkely to be more pubUcity 
 and control ; and, on. the face of things, the object of a 
 co-operative society must be rather to secure, by con- 
 scientious deaUng, a permanent than, for the sake of present 
 profit, a temporarily inflated market. Accordingly dairy- 
 ing for the sale of milk and cream — and by-products, 
 such a.s joghurt (sour milk similar to Professor Metchnikoff's), 
 kefir (fermented milk similar to koumiss and most digestible) 
 and caseine (in Sweden, intended for use in cooking in 
 that country and in Germany, and of late also in France) 
 — has come to take a recognised place by the side of butter- 
 making and cheese-making. And there are some excellent 
 establishments to serve as models for imitation, answering- 
 well and approved of by their customers. It is sufficient 
 here to mention two, one at Copenhagen, the other at 
 Dresden. Co-operative dairying has, in Germany, even 
 pushed its way into the manufacture of condensed milk. 
 Wherever circumstances are favourable for the sale of 
 milk, that has proved a good business. 
 
 In the United Kingdom we are beholden to the quick- 
 witted Irish and to the cluster of their deserving leaders, 
 headed by Sir Horace Plunkett, for such httle co-operative 
 dairying as we at present can boast of. What we possess 
 in England makes a poor show indeed beside the 3,500 
 or so of co-operative dairies in Germany, the 2,000 or so of 
 Switzerland, the 1,200 of Denmark, the 700 of France and 
 even the 400 of Finland. For we possess as yet only 
 about a score — to about 400 already established and 
 flourishing in Ireland. The Irish, pasturing people that 
 they are, were driven into the adoption of co-operative 
 dairying by severe competition. Their trade was being 
 crowded out, in spite of Canon Bagot, by Danish im- 
 pprtation. It was our old enemies, destined in after- time 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 83- 
 
 to become our friends— the countrymen of conquering 
 Canute, and of Hengist and Horsa (for Professor Weiland 
 has conclusively traced the home of our Anglo-Saxon 
 invaders to present Frisia)— who by a second, peaceable 
 invasion, with improved butter, forced the change upon 
 them. " A hair of the same dog " would cure the mischief 
 that the first hair had wrought. Under Danish— and lately 
 Dutch — tuition Ireland has made a rapid advance, and 
 though its cows do not yet by any means yield as do the 
 Danish or the Dutch, and though their handhng is not 
 always as careful as it might be, they have now in general 
 no points to ask for in a trial of skill from either of their 
 foreign competitors. If only the difficulty of winter 
 dair3^ng could be got over — which undoubtedly presents 
 greater difficulties in a pasturing country than it does in 
 a stall feeding, but which is not insuperable — the further 
 progress of Irish dairying would seem assured. For in 
 Ireland the price obtained for milk in the shape of butter 
 is stiU, as for the most part it is in Denmark, recognised as 
 remunerative. 
 
 We may now proceed to a consideration of the require- 
 ments of a co-operative dairy and the conditions under 
 which such may be expected to thrive, leaving for the 
 moment the selection of the particular form of emplojang 
 the milk collected out of sight. 
 
 This is, as has been insisted upon in the preface, not 
 the place for entering into the minutiae of technical 
 dairy management, for which there are other guides, but 
 merely for discussing the conditions which go to justify 
 the formation of co-operative dairy societies and to insure 
 their success. The cardinal points among such conditions 
 are a regular sufficient supply of the raw material and the 
 possession and retention of a favourable and trustworthy 
 market. Such market is to be secured by uniform good, 
 quality and a steady supply. 
 
.-84 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 The "sufficient supply " stipulated for is to be secured 
 by the presence of an adequately large number of cows 
 and a binding obhgation laid upon members to dehver 
 regularly all the milk which such cows produce, except 
 whatever may be required for use in their own homes 
 .and on their farms, during a fixed and sufficiently extended 
 period. Alike Danes, Germans and Dutch lay great stress 
 upon such obligation, the Danes extending the period of its 
 -duration in many cases to fifteen years and more, although 
 under certain circumstances they are content with only 
 two years. Whatever be the particular term agreed upon, 
 an obligation of the kind indicated there will have to be, 
 -or the society may be left altogether "in the air," with 
 a costly plant and buildings on its hands and no use for 
 them. Even under a binding obligation there remain 
 -some points of uncertainty to take into account, one 
 -of which — already alluded to — ^makes itself rather un- 
 pleasantly felt among ourselves, viz., the difference 
 between the supply of milk in summer and in winter. 
 Apart from this, and from the danger ever present of the 
 •disqualification of milk by disease, members may increase 
 or else reduce their herds, and so produce either plethora 
 -or want. That danger is not indeed seriously menacing. 
 For given holdings are likely at all times to require ap- 
 proximately the same number of Uve stock. And the 
 results of co-operative dairying should be such as not to 
 favour any disposition to reduce it. The falUng off of 
 -supply in winter is a more serious matter and may form 
 a telling hindrance in marketing. For consumers want 
 to have their milk and butter supphed all the year round, 
 in winter as weU as in summer. In countries where there 
 is stallfeeding the question raises no difiiculty ; for the 
 difference between summer and winter yield is there much 
 less pronounced. The period of calving may easily be 
 Arranged so as to meet requirements. And the inclement 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 
 
 85 
 
 season does not affect cows within the warm byre. Apart 
 from timing the period of calving, this is a question also 
 of shelter and of the provision of additional food. The 
 more nearly summer and winter yield can be brought to 
 approximate, the better will the chances be for the com- 
 mand of a good market. 
 
 ant co-operative creameries or dairies should not be 
 too small. There is a movement at the present time 
 very pronounced in Germany— wherever buttermaking is 
 the form of dairying practised — for bringing down dairies 
 to a lower level in respect of members— which tendency 
 is in marked contrast with a movement equally pronounced 
 in progress in Sweden in the opposite direction, that is, 
 of amalgamating dairies for the sake of arriving at large- 
 ness. So far as local conditions permit — there must be 
 a certain limit of distance observed, or dehvery will be 
 rendered inconveniently onerous — there can be no doubt 
 that the Swedish farmers are the wiser of the two sets of 
 people. And this is frankly admitted by experts among 
 the Germans themselves. It stands to reason. Butter 
 of superior quality can be cheaply produced only in 
 considerable quantity. There must be a plant capable 
 of converting large quantities. Such plant, costing a 
 fair sum of money, wants to be fully employed if it is 
 to pay its expenses. There must also be " power " to work 
 the separator, the pumps, the churns and other machinery. 
 All these things are to be ensured, as the long-headed 
 Swedes clearly perceive, by accumulation of as much raw 
 material as conditions will warrant. The Germans are 
 no less long-headed, perhaps ; but they grudge the trouble 
 of delivery, which is indeed the great hitch in the whole 
 process. Dairies began by looking to members to deliver 
 their own milk in their own carts or barrows, and to come 
 again in the same way for the separated milk — which, as 
 a rule, they want for their calves and their pigs, for the 
 
 G 
 
86 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 making of creamless cheese, and, it may be, for consump- 
 tion in their homes. Such delivery can take place only 
 within a very small district. Where arrangements are 
 fully perfected and where there is a good railway service 
 — if possible, as is the case in Denmark, Sweden and the 
 Netherlands, with cold water tanks or refrigerator waggons, 
 to keep the milk (or butter) cool (temperature is of great 
 moment in dairying) — a tolerably wide radius may be 
 covered. Thus the Dresdner Milckversorgungsanstalt, which 
 deals mainly in milk, receives milk from a distance extending 
 to 50 kilometers, equal to about 31 miles. Even longer 
 distances ajre not unfrequent, such as 50 miles. And 
 so long as due provision is made for the avoidance 
 of churning and other deterioration on the road, and the 
 railway communications are sufficiently good, distance 
 need not stand in the way. For ordinary purposes, 
 where milk has to be moved by cart, or by hand, however, 
 a radius of five miles is found in practice to be a desirable 
 hmit. The better plan by far — coming from day to day 
 more widely into use — is that of making the society 
 collect the whole milk and return the separated, in carts 
 either owned by itself or else hired by contract, certainly 
 on its own account — for which service of course a certain 
 remuneration must be charged, which in Denmark ranges, 
 according to the distance and the conditions of the case, 
 from a little under |d. to about i|d. per 100 lbs. of milk. In 
 Denmark, where, thanks to the High Schools, rural morals, 
 stand high, this arrangement simpUfies collection exceed- 
 ingly. For farmers just leave their cans of milk at fixed 
 known points by the roadside, where the collecting cart 
 regularly picks them up. And to the same points they 
 send at stated times for the return cans now containing the 
 "skim" or, more correctly speaking, the " separated " 
 milk. We can scarcely in this country aspire to the same 
 idyllic simplicity. But wherever particular farms cannot 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 
 
 87 
 
 be called at, we can ask farmers to arrange among them- 
 selves for the selection of convenient recognised local 
 collecting centres, to which— the distance being short— 
 they may deliver their milk. In Germany, as observed, 
 some farmers grudge both trouble and the small payment 
 for collection ; and accordingly— -under the seductive 
 persuasion of makers of small plants ; that appears to 
 be in many cases the main deciding reason — spht off from 
 their large societies and set up small, with hand separators 
 only, in greater vicinity, or else revert to the old practice 
 of home churning — using a hand-separator. By such 
 secession they lose the advantage not only of uniformity 
 of product, but also of economy of labour and an indepen- 
 dent position in the market. And it is only hkely that 
 in the course of time they will have to return to making 
 on a larger scale. Their secession from large societies, 
 by- the way, suppHes an additional argument in favour 
 of binding members to deliver for an extended period. 
 
 The same difficulty which has caused German farmers 
 to split off from their societies has suggested other methods 
 for overcoming the trouble of delivering at a distance. 
 One has been to deUver, not milk, but cream, being a less 
 bulky product, and keeping the separated milk at home. 
 That means separating at home by handpower. This 
 practice is very common in Sweden, where there are special 
 "cream dairies" {Graddemejerierer) and where it is said 
 to answer well. One potent argument there put forward 
 in its justification is that it enables Swedish farmers — 
 who receive in their own country only a very moderate 
 price for their milk, namely, something like 7 oere the 
 litre — ^to export their cream into Germany, as an alterna- 
 tive to exporting butter, upon which the Germans levy 
 a heavy duty, of los. per cwt., whereas cream passes 
 in free. In Germany, on the other hand, this method 
 has not answered at all. The difficulty about dehvery 
 
88 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 SO much complained of does not lie in the quantity, but 
 in the sending, which is not so got over. Delivering cream 
 involves keeping more plant at home, far more frequent 
 testing at the creamery — in the case of milk one testing 
 a week is as a rule found sufficient — and double accounts. 
 It is not at all apphcable- to small lots of milk, which is 
 a decided objection from our point of view, but practically 
 restricted to delivery from large farms. Accordingly 
 in Germany the practice is being abandoned almost as 
 fast as it is taken up. 
 
 The best remedy for long distance is that which — 
 treading in foreign footsteps — co-operators have adopted 
 in Ireland, namely, of setting up auxihary creameries, 
 acting each for a comparatively circumscribed district, 
 and either sending up the cream (after separating) to 
 the principal establishment, to be there ripened, churned 
 and sold, or else making the butter themselves and sending 
 up the finished product — to be there, so it should be 
 suggested, blended with the other butter for the sake of 
 uniformity. That is, by the way, what is done with 
 apparent advantage among the societies composing 
 the zuivelvereeniging of Drenthe, in the Netherlands ; that 
 has also been found advantageous in South Wales, during 
 the time that it was there practised. Co-operating farmers 
 there dehvered their butter to the depot of the Co-operative 
 Wholesale Society, which thoroughly mixed it up and 
 was enabled to pay the farmers a better price than they 
 could obtain otherwise. 
 
 Farmers may of course also do the blending for them- 
 selves. That is in fact the most elementary form of 
 co-operating for dairy purposes and quite suitable for 
 small holders. The object is to reduce the expense of 
 sale by acting in common, and to produce a uniform 
 product. There is no den5dng the simplicity of the 
 process. However in proportion to the simphcity the 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 89 
 
 benefits of such Co-operation threaten to prove small in 
 comparison with more systematic organisation, all the 
 more that the steady uniformity of the product can under 
 such circumstances never be fully guaranteed. 
 
 Xo fixed rule can, of course, be laid down for the 
 number of cows to be attached to a creamery. Up to a 
 certain point such number will have to be determined 
 by the proximity of the farms. For, by way of an auxi- 
 liarj^ creamery or otherwise, one great desideratum will 
 be that the estabhshment should be readily accessible 
 to all its supphers, just as, on the other hand, it is most 
 desirable that it should command ready access to its 
 market. The abihty to deliver prqmptly at the right 
 time — for the ascertainment of which, and of the right 
 spot, the telegraph and telephone are freely impressed-- 
 is one of the helps that the Danes are greatly indebted to for 
 their brilliant success in co-operative dairying. They 
 are in constant communication by wire with the British 
 markets and by telephone among themselves. Every 
 turn in the market can be taken advantage of, and equal 
 distribution to the several markets can be studied to 
 perfection. The facilities recently given in this country 
 for a telephone service in country districts ought to benefit 
 our coming Co-operative Dair5^ng not a little, provided 
 that we adopt the same method of centrahsation, so as 
 to focus observation and admit of a proper marshalling 
 of our forces. 
 
 The site will have to be selected accordingly. And 
 it may be well to point out at the same time that it should 
 be pro\'ided with good, pure water. For although there 
 must of course be no diluting, and the noted" Mrs. Simpson" 
 must be rigorously kept out of the tanks and pipes, the 
 milk operated upon will come into quite sufficient contact 
 with water to make it carry off contamination, if the water 
 be not pure. 
 
90 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 In Denmark the average number of cows attached 
 to a creamery is about 800 — which of course means 
 that there are many larger. The smallest number 
 favoured is 200— which is just the figure recommended 
 as minimum for an auxiUary creamery by the Irish Agri- 
 cultural Organisation Society. 
 
 It is not by any means indispensable that all members 
 of the Society should also be suppKers of milk. More 
 than any other form of co-operative society — except 
 Raiffeisen village banks — may creameries depend upon 
 capital contributed by non-producers. In Denmark it 
 is quite usual for a creamery to be started without share 
 capital. The money required is easily obtained, at 
 moderate interest, from some bank, on the security of 
 the unUmited hability of members, coupled with — this 
 is essential — binding contracts concluded with them to 
 contribute all their milk for a long period. That in part 
 explains the store set upon such contracts. Almost 
 precisely the same system of borrowing prevails in the 
 Netherlands. Something similar holds good in France, 
 where members' undertaking to supply milk is accepted 
 as a most pledgable security. And in Germany it is quite 
 common for co-operative dairies to be set up with capital 
 borrowed from a co-operative credit society, such money 
 to be paid off, instalment by instalment, not at so much 
 a year, but at so much per gallon of milk used. We ourselves 
 are not likely to organise societies in quite the same way 
 in this country. But where money is scarce, since dairy 
 business is steady and may be depended upon, well- 
 wishers to the movement, content with a small return 
 for their cash, might well invest in dairy shares, on which 
 of course only the regulation dividend, Umited to a mode- 
 rate figure, could be allowed. The "dividend" in the 
 co-operative sense, that is, the distributable share in 
 the over-plus netted, will in justice go to the producers 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 91 
 
 of milk, from whom it will, in truth, have been first held 
 back, in proportion to their supplies. A co-operative 
 dairy, owning buildings and plant, is also a very proper 
 institution to issue debentures. And, lastly, under the 
 expanding close relations between agricultural productive 
 and industrial distributive societies, one may almost antici- 
 pate that, as co-operative dairies grow more numerous, 
 distributive societies buying their produce from them 
 will take shares in them, or else debentures, just as they 
 do already in industrial productive societies with which 
 they are in business relations. 
 
 Barring the inspecting and advising action of the 
 "Control Societies " still to be spoken of — or "Control 
 Committees," for there is no absolute need for the forma- 
 tion of distinct societies — we have now done with what 
 happens before the milk is brought to the dairy, except 
 to add that it should be carefully strained and cooled 
 down to about 53 or 54° F. — some creameries allow 60° F., 
 but the last International Dairy Congress recommended 
 50° F.— and that of course none but healthy milk should 
 be accepted. The milk of animals suspected of disease, 
 "red" milk, milk within a fortnight or so after calving, 
 and any other milk with danger or unsavouriness about 
 it, wiU have to be rigorously excluded by the rules, and 
 it is the business of the "Control Committee" — and 
 also of the veterinary officers and the technical experts 
 in the dairy — to see that these provisions are carried out. 
 
 Coming now within the dairy — as regards those 
 technical experts, there should be no disposition to stint 
 expense upon them. If there is "a whole rent between 
 a good cow and a bad," as has been said, there is no less 
 difference between a capable manager and an incapable. 
 We in fact require two kinds of expert skill in a creamery 
 
 expertness in the handling of milk, and commercial 
 
 eJcpertness in marketing the product. .That is an ad- 
 
92 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 ditional argument in favour of large dairies, which alone 
 will bear the expense of, not only a perfected plant, but 
 also of good technical and business management. 
 
 Milk coming into a creamery will have to be tested 
 and its temperature will have to be taken. The test 
 recommended by the last International Dairy Congress, 
 meeting at Stockholm, for making sure that the milk is 
 new and in good condition, is that of equal parts of milk 
 and of spirit containing 70 per cent, of alcohol, shaken up 
 together and then allowed to stand. Milk so treated 
 should not under such process become clotted or coagulate 
 within 36 hours. The test for butterfat — the percentage 
 of which of course determines the price to be allowed 
 for the milk — and also for impurities (other than visible 
 admixtures) need not be taken quite so frequently. Once 
 a week will probably be sufficient, in ordinary cases — 
 except in the case of cream. It is becoming usual to 
 deliver by weight rather than by measure. But this is 
 not so material a point as is sometimes made out. Our 
 Eastern Counties Dairy Farmers contend that it supplies 
 an additional test for quality, inasmuch as milk with 
 the proper percentage of butterfat should have an ascer- 
 tainable specific weight, above that of water. That 
 consideration however, scarcely arises under our present 
 aspect, because the percentag;e of butterfat will, in any 
 case, have to be taken, as determining the commercial 
 value of the milk. The separated milk as a rule goes back 
 to the suppliers of the milk, often enough without apparent 
 charge, the value having been allowed for in the price 
 paid for the whole milk. That price, to be paid down — 
 best in monthly reckonings, for farmers cannot wait long 
 — is often advisedly taken at a little less than that ob- 
 tainable in the market. For instance, if it requires 251b. 
 of milk say, with 3 % butterfat, to make ilb. of butter 
 the figure at first set down will be 28 or 29 lbs. That 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 
 
 93 
 
 leaves a balance for the \\orking and for a dividend on 
 production at the end of the year. Business arrangements 
 should be framed on the safe side, and account-keeping 
 should also be business-like and clear. 
 
 In respect of technical management there can be no 
 more mistaken polic}' than leniency with suppliers. The 
 success of the entire enterprise depends upon quality, 
 and in stretching a point to one man the manager would 
 be inflicting serious damage upon all other members. 
 For it takes very httle impurity or contaminated milk 
 to spoil a large quantity. In this respect co-operative 
 organisation perhaps stands better than non-co-operative 
 commercial firms, because it can apply stern discipline. 
 Aggrieved members in anj' case have their remedy against 
 officers suspected of arbitrary conduct, in the appeal 
 permitted to a tribunal of which they themselves are a 
 constituent part. In some cases, where the scale of 
 0]-)erations admits of it, and where the product requires 
 particularly careful handling, it may not be amiss to 
 employ a bacteriological expert and to subject the milk 
 to bacteriological examination. Public knowledge of 
 such fact may be relied upon to ensure a more ready 
 sale for the article sold, and is therefore likely to make 
 for a better price. \\'here not only butter or cheese is 
 dealt in, but also milk and cream, the bacteriological 
 department here suggested will enable the dairy- the better 
 to turn out special kinds of milk, under medical prescription, 
 such as milk for the niu-sery and for invalids, for which 
 there is a growing demand. However these are refine- 
 ments which probabh' in Great Britain go beyond the 
 need of the hour. 
 
 There is, as already obser^-ed, no caU here to go into 
 the technical details of butter and cheese making. No 
 matter whether the product be butter or cheese, it must 
 be a natural object for the society to turn out an article 
 
94 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 of sound and steady quality which itself -or, preferably, 
 the Federation of which it should form a part — can con- 
 scientiously recommend to the market, with a brand or 
 stamp, such as will soon enough become known to the 
 public, and the use of which — as translated into the money 
 which it will earn — constitutes the main visible gain that 
 farmers derive from their co-operative organisation. It 
 is hke the stamp on the guinea. It does not make the 
 article which bears it intrinsically more valuable, but it 
 makes it to pass current with the merchant. By no means 
 let Federations permit its use carelessly ! That might 
 cost them their reputation and whittle away all the benefit 
 to be looked for from Co-operation. 
 
 It has become usual — except in some societies which 
 supply milk direct from the farm — to pasteurise all milk 
 used, whether for sale as butter or in its natural shape. 
 There is safety in this and it satisfies a pubhc fancy. In 
 Denmark it is made obligatory by law. But expert 
 opinion is by no means wholly at one upon its value. In 
 pasteurising care should be taken not to "boil," which 
 imparts . a peculiar and not altogether pleasant taste to 
 the finished product. German creameries pasteurise at 
 154° or 155° F., after which they cool down successively, 
 first, to 95° F., and then to 37^° F. In Ireland the tem- 
 perature favoured appears to be 160° to 170° F. Pasteuris- 
 ing of necessity entails in butter-making the use of 
 "starters " to produce the requisite lactic fermentation, 
 the bacteria for evoking which are destroyed in the heating. 
 Such "starters " may be manufactured at home ; but 
 it will be much safer to procure them by purchase from 
 a source which can guarantee pure "cultures." 
 
 A brief word is due to the famed "Control Societies " 
 quite without warrant frequently spoken of in this country 
 as merely "milk testing" societies. Such societies con- 
 stitute a very essential feature in Co-operative Dairying, 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 95 
 
 such as is dispensed with — as we have seen in Ireland 
 up to quite recently— only at a loss. No doubt "milk 
 measuring" and "milk testing" are items of the desired 
 ^' control." However, that is a matter of very old standing. 
 I remember measuring milk fifty-five years ago on the 
 farm on which I was then a pupil, and testing with an old- 
 lashioned galactometer at stated periods ; and the owner 
 of the farm was to be trusted to take good care to get 
 rid of the cows with poor records. But to-day ''control " 
 goes a great deal beyond this elementary point and makes 
 of the "controllers " — some of whom are women — in very 
 truth "guides, philosophers and friends" to small cow- 
 keepers,- as well as rather stern watchers, inspecting 
 beasts, b5rres and fields, and going into a multitude of 
 •details in the interest of the production of good, sound 
 milk. Skilled as they are, they advise how to feed and 
 how to tend cattle, how to deal with the milk, what animals 
 to keep, and what to get rid of, how to mate cows, what 
 rotation to observe in cropping, and all such things. 
 Their most useful services — which in themselves amount 
 to a course of technical agricultural training in its most 
 practical and home-going form — are supplemented bj^ those 
 of the veterinary surgeon. 
 
 "Control." of this kind was adopted in Switzerland, 
 in connection with Baron Wattenwiel's admirable "Li^'e 
 Stock Improvement Societies." The remarkable improve- 
 ment which it brought about in the value and \-ield of 
 herds is pointed out elsewhere. The Danes took it up 
 ■with their characteristic practical sense and energy, in 
 the first instance hkewise in the interest of Live Stock 
 Improvement Societies. And to the present day, of the 
 519 "Control Societies" existing in Denmark (in 1909), 
 one half continue specifically attached to such societies. 
 Of the remainder about 200 are federated in unions of 
 their own. Benefiting largely by such service, Denmark 
 
96 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 in due course set the example to all surrounding countries 
 — Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria. In Sweden, 
 within the short period between 1901 and 1902, and 
 1904 and 1905, "Control" increased the yield per cow 
 from 3,134 to 3,539 lbs., and the proportion of butterfat 
 from 3.21 to 3.24 per cent, while at the same time reducing 
 the fodder given from 155 lbs. (reckoned in " feeding units") 
 to only 135 lbs., which involved a considerable saving 
 in money. Denmark at the present time possesses, as 
 observed, more than 500 Control societies, which, among 
 them, inspect 206,800 cows, that is, 18 per cent, of the entire 
 number of cows in the kingdom, the average peld of 
 which, ascertained to be 3080 kilos p. a., compares favour- 
 ably with the 2660 kilos yielded on an average by an 
 uninspected cow. 
 
 In the Netherlands, where "Control" was adopted 
 in 1900, it has since taken a twofold shape. There is 
 "milk control," or milk testing, which does not go beyond 
 the point indicated in the name, milk testing societies 
 being formed by from 10 to 12 farmers each, who employ 
 a common tester, required to measure and test the milk 
 of their cows at least once a fortnight. Besides this there 
 is the "Butter Control," practised, with Government 
 assistance, at eight stations, to test butter for admission 
 to the use of the common "brand." 
 
 We, in the United Kingdom, have at present scarcely 
 anything of the sort — although a comparison between 
 the yields of cows here and elsewhere shows that we badly 
 need it. In the South-west of Scotland some few farmers 
 have combined to societies, formed on the Dutch model, 
 consisting of from 12 to 18 members each, to have the 
 milk of their cows measured and tested for butterfat, as 
 I measured and tested it 55 years ago, by young men 
 trained at the dairy School at Kilmarnock, wlio come for 
 the evening's milking and remain till the following 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 97 
 
 morning.* And in Ireland the Irish Agricultural Organisa- 
 tion Society has quite recently approved a "Control 
 Scheme," of the results of which it is too early to speak. 
 However, in respect of no point have we greater need 
 to take a leaf out of the Danish book. And, even if in 
 its first stage our "control " should have to be supported 
 by outside assistance, it ought to be adopted. 
 
 What has thus far been said has advisedly been made 
 to apply to co-operative dairying generally, without re- 
 ference to any distinct product to be turned out, although 
 there has very naturally been something of a presumption 
 in favour of butter-making, which is, as already observed, 
 still most generally looked upon as the normal utilisation 
 of milk. The object with which co-operative dairying 
 was originally taken up was to produce an article which 
 could be made to travel long journeys and keep a moderate 
 length of time, so as to be marketable at a distance. And, 
 except in distinct cheese districts, butter was by a sort 
 of accepted prescription regarded as such "article." 
 However, from a specifically English point of view, butter 
 has to some extent cesised to be a fuUy remunerative 
 product — fuUy remunerative, at any rate, where other 
 forms, under which to present the most saleable "product 
 of the cow " to the pubhc, are available. It has become 
 something of a habit in England to run down butter- 
 making as not yielding an equally good return as either 
 the sale of milk in its natural shape or else cheese-making, 
 although cheaper production is believed to make it very 
 weU worth maintaining in Ireland and in Denmark. It 
 is, however, not by any means certain that in Denmark, 
 likewise, the hmit of remunerativeness has not in 
 some instances already been overpassed. Those who 
 disparage butter-making for this country, however, appear 
 to overlook two rather noteworthy facts. There are 
 places in which the sale of milk is not practicable and 
 *This practice is reported to have been now much extended. 
 
98 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 which are not suited to cheesemaking ; and furthermore 
 the co-operative methods not yet tried in England are 
 hkely to do not a httle both to reduce cost of production 
 and increase price of sale, so as to make up the deficiency 
 in remunerativeness now complained of. 
 
 However, undoubtedly, the other two methods of 
 disposing of milk have much to recommend them, wherever 
 they are practicable. 
 
 To speak of cheese-making first, as the most direct 
 competitor to butter-making — ^inasmuch as it provides 
 a readily marketable commodity occupying comparatively 
 small space and that will keep — ^unquestionably where 
 the cheese produced is of good marketable quality, there 
 is at present more "money in it " than there is in butter- 
 making ; and we have, in fact, capital results on record 
 as resulting from co-operative cheese-making by societies 
 affiliated to the Agricultural Organisation Society, more 
 specifically in Derbyshire, but also at GiUingham in 
 Dorset and at the Scalford Dairy (Melton Mowbray), 
 which manufactures "Stilton " cheese to the tune of about 
 5,000 cheeses a year. The Eastern Counties Dairy Farmers' 
 Co-operative Society also appropriates a considerable 
 quantity of milk during the season of greatest abundance, 
 that is, during May and June, to cheese-making. In 
 1909 the quantity so employed was 11,223 gallons, in 
 in addition to 2,882 gallons coming from the Essex County 
 Education Committee, in connection with the dairy 
 class at Chelmsford. Co-operative cheese-making is like- 
 wise on the increase in the Netherlands, on the same 
 ground. So much, in fact, is its value appreciated in 
 that country, that a special Government "brand" is iii 
 contemplation, to facilitate the sale of cheese, as the stamp 
 Nederl'andsche Botercontrole has facilitated the sale of 
 butter. In Germany it is rather the soft fancy cheeses, 
 now so much in vogue, being imitations of Camembert, 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 99 
 
 Brie, Neufchatel, and the like, that find favour with 
 co-operative dairies, in addition to that popular article 
 of German cuisine and baking, curds {Quark). However, 
 there are two points that want to be borne in mind, in 
 respect of cheese-making. The first is that cheese has 
 its good periods and its bad. In Switzerland there was 
 a roaring trade done in Gruyere in the sixties and seventies, 
 when Gruyere was in fashion. Then came a time when 
 profits fell off so severely that, avowedly to provide a 
 substitute — as will still be shown — Baron Wattenwiel 
 hit upon the happy idea of organising Co-operative Live 
 Stock Improvement Associations. At the present time 
 it is understood to be only the best known brands of 
 Emmenthal cheese which fetch really remunerative 
 prices. The second point is this, that cheese-making 
 cannot stand by itself. It is practicable only during a 
 limited part of the year. During that time it is in this 
 country a paying business in cheese districts. And it is 
 most accommodating in making that period coincide 
 with a season in which there is as a rule a superabundance 
 of milk, depressing the price. Relieving the market at 
 such time, and leaving it free for milk at others, it accord- 
 ingly forms an ideal supplement to the sale of milk, where 
 such is practicable. With respect to butter-making its 
 accommodatingness is not quite so marked, though it is 
 not absent. For what appUes to abundance of milk 
 applies also to butter. Only in the butter trade there 
 is found to be great virtue in continuity of supply. 
 Certainly the co-operative organisation of cheese-making 
 presents no difficulties whatever. Switzerland and the 
 Netherlands supply evidence of this, not to mention our 
 own Derbyshire. And there is very good reason why our 
 co-operating cow-keepers should in suitable districts 
 turn their attention to it a great deal more than they 
 have hitherto done. 
 
lOO CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 However the great future of co-operative dairying 
 appears now to lie in the supply of populous places 
 with new milk of superior quality, capable of being 
 guaranteed — coupled with the sale of cream and of such 
 by-products .as have already been mentioned, so far as 
 the public may take to them. The pubhc value a supply 
 of sound, sweet, hygienic milk. The remarkable effect 
 of providing such a supply has already been shown in the 
 case of Basel. And the "faculty" rightly do their best 
 to develop such fastidious taste — which is not really all 
 fastidiousness, because medicine has not a little to say 
 to the matter, and medical directions for the preparation 
 of nursery and invalids' milk are becoming more and 
 more numerous. 
 
 Sale of milk on co-operative lines, that is, compre- 
 hending large quantities, is practicable in two ways. 
 Where there is plenty of custom, and where people continue 
 content — as we all were a little while ago — with milk 
 fresh from the cow, the method adopted by the Eastern 
 Counties Dairy Farmers' Society has much to recommend 
 it, by reason of its simplicity and easy working. That 
 Society's district lies within easy reach of the East of 
 London and, under its standing arrangements with a 
 number of dealers in Stratford, and also with its own 
 representatives in the same locality, its members supply 
 daily a considerable quantity of new milk to the eastern 
 suburb. Every member delivers for himself, straight 
 from his farm, to some particular dealer, carrying his 
 milk to the nearest railway station as directed by the 
 Society. The only obHgations laid upon him are that 
 he should deliver good natural milk, strained and cooled 
 down to 60° F. His contract, as usual in milk bargains, 
 recognises a " margin." That is, it is made out, say for 
 from 95 to 105 gallons, in the place of 100. He is ex- 
 pected to notify the dealer if he will deliver the smaller 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. loi 
 
 or the larger quantity. Should he deliver less than 95 
 gallons, the dealer will then make up the balance at his 
 cost, charging for it ^d. above contract price. Should he 
 deliver more than 105 gallons, the dealer wiU get rid of the 
 overplus to his credit, at whatever it will fetch, minus a 
 commission. Any overplus on the day's total delivery re- 
 maining unsold the Society's representative wiU collect and 
 carry to the Society's dep6t, to be there pasteurised and 
 either bottled for sale or converted into butter. There is a 
 regulcir butter-making plant at the depot. Under such 
 treatment fanners are said to realise from id. to 2d. more 
 for their milk, i.e., is. 4d. instead of is. 2d. per gallon in 
 summer, and is. 8d. instead of is. yd. in winter. 
 
 Where people are more squeamish in their taste, or 
 medicinally particular in their demands, a far more com- 
 plex method has to be adopted. But that method pays, 
 and is at the same time beneficial to its district, as may 
 be judged from the results of the Copenhagen and the 
 Dresden "Milk Supply Societies," among others. The 
 Dresden Establishment, set up only three years ago, is 
 the more modern and up-to-date of the two. It receives 
 a considerable quantity of milk from a district with a 
 perimeter, as has been stated, of about 50 kilometers, and 
 has nearly trebled that quantity in the two years of its 
 existence. Every care is taken to deliver only the best 
 quaUty of whatever is sold, and the apphances used are 
 all such as to admit of the most scrupulous cleanhness. 
 Thus the pipes and tubes take to pieces, so that every 
 "elbow " in them may be thoroughly cleaned every day. 
 Steam and brushes are in fact kept busy everywhere, 
 cleaning everything. The milk received— at midnight, 
 at a temperature of at most 54° F.— is carefuUy examined, 
 tested at once with alcohol, and once a week for butter- 
 fat. It is passed through nickeled pipes of steel into two 
 several reservoirs on the upper floor— the one for butter- 
 
I02 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 making, the other for sale as milk. The sale of milk is 
 the main business, as being the most profitable. It is 
 only the milk not to be so disposed of which is converted 
 into butter. However the quantity to be so dealt with 
 is sufficiently well known beforehand to admit of a division. 
 There is also a considerable quantity of separated milk 
 — such as there is no demand for in its natural state by 
 members — converted into curds, which are treated in 
 a separate room lighted by blue glass windows, to keep 
 the flies off. The milk destined to be sold as milk passes 
 from the upper reservoir through a "cleaning separator," 
 to remove impurities, after which it is pasteurised at 154^° F. 
 (that is, 68° centigrade), and afterwards cooled down in 
 two refrigerators, first to 94° F., and next to 37 or 38° F. 
 (with the aid of salt water kept outside the lower part of 
 the refrigerator at 23° F.). It is then fiUed into bottles 
 or jugs and carted away to the branch dep6ts, where it 
 is sold in retail. Retail trade of course makes the business 
 more profitable. At Berhn, such milk is now sold at aU 
 the principal railway stations and in booths at various 
 points in the town ; and a good deal is consumed in hot 
 weather. The mUk intended for butter is first heated 
 up to 86° to 95° F., afterwards separated, and the cream 
 is at once pasteurised at 149° F., cooled down to about 
 37° F., then run through pipes into the ripening room,, 
 where it is treated with "starters " (obtained from Kiel), 
 eventually churned and treated in the ordinary way for 
 sale, never a human hand touching it during the whole 
 process. The separated milk is likewise pasteurised, 
 cooled down and sold in bottles. 
 
 The question has repeatedly been asked, whether 
 a more profitable use Ccinnot be made of separated milk 
 than by returning it to members or seUing it for feeding pur- 
 poses. Various other employments have been tried in 
 Germany. Separated milk htis been sold in somewhat 
 
CO-OPERATIVE DISPOSAL OF MILK. 103 
 
 considerable quantities for the production of patent 
 articles such as sanatogen, plasmon preparations, or 
 galalite, also for the manufacture of margarine, and hke- 
 wise for the preparation of milk sugar and caseine. In 
 Saxony it has been found profitable to employ it for the 
 manufacture of condensed milk. But, otherwise, experts 
 have come to the conclusion that the use of separated 
 milk for feeding purposes is by far the most advisable, as 
 yielding the best return in the long run, and in a steady 
 way. 
 
 The Dresden Society does a great deal to cultivate 
 the good graces of the "faculty," which accordingly favours 
 and recommends it. It maintains a bacteriological 
 department of its own, with a laboratory, both being 
 presided over by a skilled "sister," who also deUvers 
 lectures, which are well attended by farmers and intending 
 dairymen and women — including direct competitors, who 
 are not turned back, because the lectures are considered 
 a matter of pubUc utihty. With the help of this depart- 
 ment scrupulous justice is done to medical prescriptions 
 for nursery and invahds' milk, as well as of "joghurt" 
 and "kefir." 
 
 It remains to be pointed out once more that Dairy 
 Co-operation has proved a most fruitful propagator of 
 other forms of Co-operation, bringing profit to the farmer, 
 because it creates an apparatus which may well be turned 
 to account for other purposes, and has sufficient spare 
 power left in it to devote to such. Our Eastern Counties 
 Dairy Farmers' Society does some trade in eggs, which is 
 a very proper and very frequent adjunct to dairy business. 
 Common purchase of farm requisites is another business 
 readily tacked on to dairying. Where electric power is 
 employed, that provides an opening for further use of 
 the same power, at off hours, say, for hghting. Not a few 
 foreign creameries (44 in Germany) maintain public baths 
 
104 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 as a side employment. That is of course possible only in 
 populous places where sufficient bathing accommodation 
 is not otherwise provided, as it is now mostly in this country. 
 Others have circular saws, comcrushers, gristmills and 
 even full mills. Indeed, the variety of side uses given 
 to creameries is considerable. The readiness with which 
 creameries may be expanded to such larger co-operative 
 estabhshments ought, in fact, to stand as a particular 
 recommendation of them. And for that reason, as much 
 as for their intrinsic utility, one may hope that a large 
 number of them may, before long, be established in this 
 country. The benefit which they hold out to smaller 
 farmers is very substantial. 
 
I05 
 
 VI. DISPOSAL OF EGGS AND POULTRY. 
 
 There axe special reasons why, at any rate, the small 
 farmers' trade in eggs should by preference be organised 
 on co-operative hnes. That trade, and the poultry yard 
 generally, have long remained a neglected quantity in the 
 farmer's economy. For generations back the poultry 
 yard has been looked upon as the specific realm of the 
 farmer's wife, to yield dainties for the farmer's table 
 and a little pocket money for his lady. In few cases only 
 did aml^tion soar higher. One such case is that of East 
 Sussex. Shrewd men in that division of the county, 
 up on the sandy heights on which General Elliott, after- 
 wards Lord Heathfield, had, with the assistance of a simple 
 village blacksmith, devised effective means for defending 
 Gibraltar — his connection with which feat is to the present 
 day perpetuated on the spot by a monument raised to 
 Calpes Defensor — had learnt to utilise the taste for poultry 
 maturing among gourmets for business purposes, and turned 
 the Heathfield district into a second La Bresse.* Large 
 farmers sold their thousands of crammed birds — "Surrey 
 fowls," as the market incorrectly caUed them — every year 
 and out of this business netted a handsome profit ; 
 labourers on their small holdings made their £20 or ^^30 
 extra, of which haK was set down as net profit. But all 
 this, which continues to the present day in yearly increasing 
 
 * See the article on "Sussex Higgling" in the author's "Quaint 
 Industries and Interesting Places" (1882), and also in "Sussex 
 Industries," published in 1883. That article has had the good 
 fortune of being reprinted as a lesson for the consideration of poul- 
 try keepers in almost every English-speaking country. 
 
io6 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 volume, was exceptional. Generally speaking the fowl- 
 yard was considered a useful and picturesque, but very 
 secondary, appendage to the farm. 
 
 The advent of an age of greater wealth and weaker 
 digestions has led to the discovery that there is "money " 
 in the poultry yard as well — substantial money, it may be — 
 if it is only rightly treated, in a businesslike way, with a 
 view to satisfying its particular market. That market 
 is fastidious, but it has a healthy appetite and keeps 
 constantly expanding — whereas its supplies from abroad, 
 upon which it has in the past to a large extent relied, 
 keep growing scantier and more meagre every year — 
 simply because people abroad are growing wealthier and 
 more dyspeptic hke ourselves and asking for "hght " nitro- 
 genous food, instead, of heavy butcher's meat. Never- 
 theless — not to speak now of poultry, of which we still 
 import a goodly quantity — our annual imports of eggs 
 stand at about seven milUons and a quarter sterling, of 
 which Russia supplies nearly half. However, in an 
 economic sense, Russia is now becoming more and more 
 tributary to her nearer neighbour, Germany which, with 
 a growing appetite for the article, accordingly readily 
 intercepts her eggs. It was time, then, that we should 
 wake up to the fact that the poultry-yard may be turned 
 into a Tom Tidler's ground, and made to yield more than 
 mere pocket money. In truth, one small farmer in 
 Scotland — at Eday in the Orkneys — is reported by Dr. 
 Drysdale (Secretary of the Scottish Agricultural Organisa- 
 tion Society) to have found his poultry surpassing in 
 remunerativeness the proverbial Irish "pig," paying his 
 rent more than three times over. 
 
 Our awakening has been slow. But it has been very 
 much stimulated of late by the excellent work done by 
 the National Poultry Organisation Society and by its 
 able Secretary, Mr. Edward Brown, who is now by generjil 
 
DISPOSAL OF EGGS AND POULTRY. 107 
 
 admission the authority of authorities on this partictdar 
 matter. That Society was formed only in 1898— not 
 originally with the object of instilling or practising Co- 
 operation, but merely to improve the breeds of poultry 
 in our country, regarded as egg layers; to teach their 
 owners to extract the maximum of benefit from them ; 
 and to correct the faulty organisation of the market! 
 which at that time was truly abominable. Very soon, 
 however, the National Poultry Organisation Society 
 was brought to discover that, if it wanted to achieve the 
 best possible results, it must needs organise on co-operative 
 lines, because, in Mr. Brown's own words, "that would 
 throw the responsibility more upon the producers, who 
 had been demorahsed by all-round price, regardless of 
 quality and real value." 
 
 Ah, that is the point ! If there was to be good work 
 done, the market must be studied ; quahty — which in 
 this case means both intrinsic value and freshness — must 
 be made an object. And that could be done effectually 
 only by fixing the responsibility for his particular supply 
 upon every particular producer — ^for which purpose Co- 
 operation supphes the most effective instrument, inas- 
 much as it makes the community of producers in one 
 society the master and judge of every one of them, and 
 is by such means placed in a position to enforce honest 
 service and discipline, such as might be denied to a dealer. 
 
 But there is more. If the market was to be satisfied, 
 there must also be uniformity, such as is to be arrived at by 
 "grading." And to produce imiformity there must be 
 bulk of supply, which means combination among many. 
 For these reasons, and the other, very obvious one, that 
 Co-operation will save the trouble and expense of indi- 
 vidual marketing — or else the toU levied by the higghng 
 collector — besides yielding a fresher product than the 
 old-fashioned weekly market (now happily in most places 
 
io8 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 extinct, for the main disposal of eggs) people — elsewhere 
 at any rate — ^willingly turned to Co-operation for bringing 
 that once exotic bird — which Aristophanes still spoke 
 of as "the Persian bird," to wit, the fowl — to due honour. 
 
 Elsewhere — for to our loss we Britons have remained 
 backward. Even now, after strenuous efforts, continued 
 at any rate a dozen years, by the side of the imposing 
 arrays of co-operative poultry societies existing abroad, 
 we have only less than a half-hundred to show in England, 
 about forty in Scotland, and a poor score or so in Ireland. 
 The one continental province of Hanover has 142 [ 
 Of these, 18 combine the breeding of poultry, or the sale 
 of eggs, with other forms of Co-operation — dairjring or 
 distributive business. Ninety-eight societies were in 1910 
 egg-selHng societies pure and simple, and these had in that 
 year disposed of 27,500,000 eggs, realising thereby more 
 than £80,000 for distribution among their members. 
 
 However, a brighter day seems now dawning. 
 
 Some of our co-operative egg-seUing is indeed no 
 doubt indigenous. Thus in the Orkneys and Shetlands 
 canny Scots, after for a long time undergoing stern rule 
 at the hands of the grocer — ^who was their one dealer 
 and something of a tyrant — detected means of turning 
 the tables upon him by combining to refuse collectively 
 to sell eggs at less them a stated price. There is not much 
 choice of supply in those northern latitudes, and eggs are 
 a most perishable article to have on one's hands. The 
 grocer wanted his eggs ; he had his cart for collection ready 
 bought, and could therefore scarcely do otherwise than 
 give in. That is not the form of Co-operation here pleaded 
 for. But it may be effective. 
 
 For a model of genuine co-operative egg-trade, we 
 are, as in the case of dair5nng, beholden to the Danes, • 
 who, on the top of their trade with this coimtry in butter, 
 with native cuteness set themselves to organise a trade 
 
DISPOSAL OF EGGS AND POULTRY. 109 
 
 also in eggs, at a time when England, itself neglectful of 
 its golden opportunities, served as almost the only inter- 
 national market for eggs to count. They made a very 
 fair start in the eighties. However, the London market 
 grew dissatisfied. Eggs were deUvered in a faulty condition, 
 often dirty, or stale ; or else, "pickled " eggs were palmed 
 off as new. Between 1891 and 1895 this state of things, 
 which may well serve as a warning for all times, reached 
 its undesirable climax, and accordingly, promptly resolute, 
 the Danes in 1895 formed their co-operative egg export 
 society [Dansk Andels Aegeksport) after the model of their 
 successful wholesale butter exportation society, which 
 egg society soon set things right because, exercising un- 
 bending disciphne over its members — ^who had become 
 accustomed to such treatment under dairy organisation 
 — it was in a position also to guarantee to the market 
 a genuine product of the best quahty — tested, graded 
 and new laid; or else properly "pickled" and offered 
 as "pickled," at the right time. The Danish trade mark 
 soon became a readily recognised passport for eggs. 
 
 The Danes have reaped the reward of the bold initia- 
 tive thus taken — just as we have already been rewarded 
 for following in their footsteps. The return obtained for 
 the same number of eggs has increased by from 20 to 25 
 per cent., which in our case amounts to 2d. more per dozen 
 or 2 or 3 eggs less for a shilling, while at the same time 
 the customer is satisfied, receiving a more rehable article. 
 The result has indeed been the same everjrwhere — ^in the 
 United Kingdom, in Denmark, in Germany, in France. 
 In Denmark, thanks to Co-operation, the English market 
 was readily recaptured and retained. The exportation 
 of eggs has, in Denmark, become a business of national 
 importance. Whereas, according to official figures* 
 
 * Taken from " Coopiration dans V Agriculture en Danemark." 
 Publie par le Bureau Statistique de I'Etat. 1910. 
 
no CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 in 1895 only about seven million crowns' worth of eggs 
 were exported, by 1909 the figure had risen to twenty-five | 
 millions. (There was, as has lately been stated in the 
 Economist, a further increase of two millions' worth in 1910.) 
 And whereas, in 1893, the number of hens kept in Denmark 
 stood at 5,900,000, at the present time it reaches about 
 12,000,000. Accordingly, while the number of possible 
 ■egg-layers has a little more than doubled, under co-opera- 
 tive organisation the value of the yield has nearly quad- 
 rupled. 
 
 And the prospects of commercial development have 
 correspondingly improved. What Dr. Drysdale writes 
 about Scotland holds good pretty nearly everywhere : — 
 " Since the introduction of co-operative methods of collect- 
 ing and marketing, the production of eggs within the 
 area referred to has been enormously increased and 
 interest in that department hcis been very greatly stimu- 
 lated.. Wherever an egg collecting society has been 
 established, greater attention is being paid to breeding 
 a better class of fowls, and to their feeding and general 
 management. In some districts the portable hen-house, 
 in which the fowls are kept on the colony system, is a new 
 feature in' the landscape.'' 
 
 The first object of co-operative poultry organisation 
 is, of course, to facilitate the sale — ^let us for the present 
 confine ourselves to eggs — ^by sending one person to market 
 instead of many. Such elementary form of Co-operation 
 is practised in what are known as "Egg-selling Clubs," 
 in which a number of small folk raising eggs simply deliver 
 such regularly to one person, generally a woman under- 
 taking the work in consideration of a small commission, 
 who carries the entire number to the consumers and 
 collects the money for them. There is no question here 
 of testing, or grading, of supervising, or of improvement 
 of breed or of conditions of production. The business 
 
DISPOSAL OF EGGS AND POULTRY. m 
 
 is also necessarily restricted to a very small area and a 
 mere cluster of neighbours. However, it answers so far, 
 that there is no need of many people going to the dealer's 
 shop with very few eggs each, or of allowing eggs to grow 
 stale ; and that a better price is usually obtained than 
 that offered by the itinerant higgler. 
 
 Genuine co-operative poultry societies, even when 
 confining themselves to the egg trade only, take a bolder 
 flight. But it deserves to be pointed out that everywhere, 
 even when operating on a fairly large scale, their business 
 must always remain to some extent circumscribed by the 
 very nature of the case. Eggs alone produce in each case, 
 after all, only a small amount of business. The Danes 
 liave gone on the principle of organising one particular 
 type of society for every distinct business, so that a farmer 
 having eggs to sell and implements to buy, pigs to sell and 
 so on, may have to belong to nine or ten distinct societies, 
 in every one of which he will probably meet many of the 
 old faces. However, even in their genuine separation, 
 these societies are locally so closely clustered together 
 that — among the intelligent past students of the "High 
 Schools " composing them — the evils of separation are 
 not much felt. Things are different in this country. 
 And the trade in eggs, more in particular, is likely to remain 
 in many localities within such humble proportions as of 
 themselves among ourselves appear to dictate combination 
 with some other business. The Danes practically admit 
 the necessity of some such combination by entrusting the 
 sale of eggs (by exportation), also to their Wholesale 
 Butter and Bacon Exportation Societies. The most 
 convenient arrangement that we could aim at would be 
 that actually practised by the Lincoln Society, and probably, 
 also by other Industrial Distributive Societies, of com- 
 bining the egg business with rural distribution — the 
 Society's cart, which distributes goods from the Store, 
 
112 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 on the same journey also collecting the eggs destined for 
 sale. Such arrangement greatly, faciUtates the prompt 
 collection of eggs — ^which is, in truth, the crux of the whole 
 proceeding — and leads straight up to those desirable 
 interrelations between co-operative production and dis- 
 tribution, which every practical co-operator is sure to- 
 aim at making as perfect and comprehensive as possible. 
 
 The same thing has been done with excellent results- 
 by the Wickham Market Industrial Co-operative Society, 
 which in the same way takes eggs as a return cargo in its 
 carts after deUvering goods, emd disposes of them, after 
 satisfying its own requirements, either to the Co-operative 
 Wholesale Society, or else to the marketing section of the 
 National Poultry Organisation Society. Under such 
 arrangement, it found in the very first six months pur- 
 chasers for 18,714 eggs. In the second year (1906) the 
 sales went up to 185,000, in the third year (1907) to 449,000,. 
 and during the next 2-^ years as many as 1,113,000 eggs 
 were so disposed of. In this way a thriving business has 
 been built up. And, the quality improving, the price has 
 improved with it, going up, from 22 to 24 eggs, to 18 and 
 less to the shilling. The same thing might be done, if 
 industrial co-operative societies would turn their attention 
 to it, in hundreds of other places. 
 
 Faihng such arrangement, it will be well to combine 
 the egg business, say, with dairying, which also requires 
 conveyances and deals with the very same markets. 
 
 If a co-operative poultry society would do good 
 business, it is indispensable that it should command a 
 sufficient supply of eggs — ^to be collected from readily 
 accessible farms or homesteads — to count in its own par- 
 ticular market. The first named condition calls for no- 
 explanation ; the second is of importance, because, as 
 has already been pointed out, collection presents some 
 difficulties. Eggs are a highly perishable article, the 
 
DISPOSAL OF EGGS AND POULTRY. n, 
 
 commercial value of which depends upon its newness. 
 That is really a circumstance strongly in favour of English 
 producers, with whom in the matter of newlaidness no 
 foreigner can here possibly compete— more particularly 
 since our native produce enjoys this additional advantage of 
 being, for the most part, very near to its own particular 
 market. The distance between hen-roost and market 
 is in this country generally very much smaller than else- 
 where. A Uttle delay, a day's keeping beyond the 
 narrowly measured period of only three or at most four 
 days— during which the egg will retain its valued "milky " 
 condition, and is therefore good for boiling — will make a 
 difference of 25 per cent, or so in its commercial value. 
 A few hours' sitting by the mother hen will almost entirely 
 destroy its value. Therefore the society's egg depot 
 must be within comparatively easy reach of the henroost, 
 and have ready access at the same time to its market. 
 Generally speaking, a radius of about five miles is found 
 manageable. A smaller district may make collection 
 by carting dispensable. A larger district may easily be 
 managed — where the supply is sufficient for such addition 
 — with the aid of sub-depots. However, a manageable 
 area by itself is not everything. Supplying places do not 
 want to be too widely scattered — or, at any rate, isolated 
 suppHers will have to lay their account with having to 
 dehver at somewhat greater trouble. Collection by col- 
 lectors using their legs as means of locomotion is not 
 uncommon. Within a narrow area it seems indicated. 
 However, wherever the volume of business warrants it, 
 collection by carts — to be provided by the society, which 
 will have to charge for cartage — will be found most con- 
 venient. 
 
 For reasons already explained collection of eggs 
 should be frequent — during the warmer season of the 
 year not less than three times a week ; at other times 
 
114 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 twice, if possible. And during the "broody" months 
 eggs should be taken from the hens' nests twice a day, 
 to prevent sitting. Eggs should also be carried to the 
 dep6t as expeditiously as possible, to be there as expedi- 
 tiously dealt with. 
 
 The difficulty wiU, of course, have to be faced that 
 there are eggs and eggs. And there are also hens and 
 hens. A great deal may be done by "controlling " hens, 
 as dairy cows are "controlled," and weeding out the im- 
 productive ones, while designedly breeding from the good 
 ones. Even in the same breed hens differ not a little in 
 their laying capacity. Thus in a "laying competition " — 
 such as co-operative poultry societies will do well to en- 
 courage — ^it was found that two "White Leghorns," of 
 the same breed, which is a good laying breed, laid severally, 
 the one 175 eggs in the year, and the other only 36. There 
 are hens which lay up to 180 and 200 eggs. And there 
 are others which stop short weU under 100. The good 
 layers are the hens to breed from for our present purpose. 
 For fattening purposes a different standard will have 
 to be adopted. 
 
 There are also layers of big eggs and of small. 
 The difference in nutritive substance contained within 
 the differing egg-shells is by some authorities stated 
 to be trifling, if there is any at all. Where there is more 
 "egg," there is alleged to be simply more water, to make 
 up the size. However that may be, big eggs fetch appre- 
 ciably better prices than small. Very small eggs are a 
 drug in the market. The favourite size are what are 
 called "fifteens," which means that a "long" hundred 
 of them (120) wiU weigh 15 lbs., because these, when 
 boiled, just fill a conventional egg-cup. Now the following 
 figures wiU show to what extent the weight of eggs laid 
 may be influenced by a careful selection of parents. At 
 Dervock, in Ireland, in 1900, among 100 eggs brought 
 
DISPOSAL OF EGGS AND POULTRY. 115 
 
 to the depot, there were found to be forty at I3^1bs. 
 forty at I5lbs., and twenty at I7lbs. By 1904 the 
 breed had been so much improved that there were 
 only ten I3^1bs., thirty I5lbs., thirty i61bs., twenty 
 lylbs., and ten i81bs. In the same way at Mallow — 
 likewise in Ireland — ^there were in 1900, among a hundred 
 eggs, fifty isjlbs., thirty I5lbs., and twenty i7lbs. ; in 
 I90':2l-, thirty I4lbs., thirty i61bs., twenty i7lbs., and 
 twenty i81bs. Similar cases are reported from elsewhere. 
 Thus, in Hanover, by dint of breeding, the average weight 
 of an egg was brought up from 53.8 grammes, in 1904, to 
 57.2 grammes in 1906 ; and at Veyle, in Denmark, from 
 56.2 grammes in 1906 to 58.4 grammes in 1908. 
 
 In the United States, where there are large poultry 
 farms, with from 7,000 to 8,000 hens upon them, one cute 
 poultry breeder has managed to make a good deal of money 
 out of a pecuUar breed of his own, the demand for eggs 
 of which, in New York, appeared 'insatiable. When he 
 had fully stocked his own large farm, he hit upon the 
 device of passing his superfluous hens, still of the same 
 particular breed, on to neighbours, on condition that 
 they should deliver the eggs to be laid by the hens to him 
 at a stated price. By this means he managed to supply 
 the market with large quantities. From this it will be 
 evident that breeding by a careful selection of strains 
 ought certcdnly not to be neglected. A union of co-opera- 
 tive poultry societies, such as there should be, can do 
 much to encourage it by shows, egg laying competitions 
 and also by the sale of selected chicks or eggs for breeding 
 
 But there is another quality in eggs which wants 
 paying attention to — not in the dep6t, which in our 
 narrative we have not yet reached, but in the poultry 
 yard. "Infertile" eggs are found to keep longer than 
 fecundated ones. There will accordingly be a distinct 
 advantage in keeping the cockerel away from hens whose 
 eggs are intended, not for hatching, but for selling. 
 
ii6 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 In the last place there is the point of cleanness. A 
 dirty egg is a depreciated article, although, of course, the 
 ■outside dirt makes no difference to the inner contents. 
 Washing is no remedy, because washing spoils the ap- 
 pearance of the egg — its "coat." Well organised societies 
 never take a dirty egg on any consideration, but return 
 it with an admonition to the suppher, putting a distinctive, 
 indelible and very visible mark upon it, to prevent its 
 cropping up afresh in a washed state. They also send 
 officers on an occasional round to inspect hens' nests 
 for the purpose of enforcing cleanness. Dirtiness may be 
 •easily avoided by keeping the nest supplied with clean 
 straw. 
 
 Thus far, in our tale of the progress of eggs to their 
 ultimate market, we have dealt only with general points, 
 such as apply to non-co-operative production of eggs 
 as well as to co-operative. From the present point 
 forward, however, we shaU have to take distinctively 
 co-operative practice into account, to show how it deals 
 with its eggs. Acting as a Hnk with the market, it really 
 stands, while safeguarding the supplier's interests, in the 
 position towards him of a dealer. Apart from quantity, 
 it must make sure of the superior quality of its article. 
 And to be able to do this, it must acquire sufficient power 
 over every one of its members, to be able to compel him 
 to dehver only good eggs. The first requisite for this is, 
 that it should provide means for identifying the eggs of 
 •each suppher, in order, in case of necessity, to bring home 
 his responsibihty to him, and, if need be, to get rid of 
 him in case of frequent repetitions of the offence. It does 
 this by requiring supphers to mark every egg destined 
 for the dep6t with their own distinctive number, as entered 
 on the Society's register. In Denmark supphers are also 
 made to add the number of their particular sub-district, 
 -which facihtates research. By this means the suppher 
 
DISPOSAL OF EGGS AND POULTRY. ,17 
 
 of every egg can be identified and made to answer for its 
 quality. The number affixed, of course, counts for nothing 
 in the market. But the society wiU not affix its own 
 trade mark— or better still, the trade mark of its Union, 
 which latter has a better chance of gaining a commanding 
 position in the market— unless it has made sure that 
 the egg will do it credit. The member's number in this 
 •way becomes a warrant for the use of the trade mark. 
 
 We may now assume the particular member's eggs, 
 being duly numbered, to have passed into the keeping of 
 the society which, before forwarding them to its market, 
 ■will have to put them into thoroughly marketable con- 
 dition and also examine them for their goodness. Prompt 
 delivery being of prime importance, there is not very 
 much time for this. 
 
 The society will, of course, need a suitable estabhsh- 
 ment for dealing .with the eggs. That is, fortunately, 
 not a very costly affair and, in the absence of funds, credit, 
 such as we find to be forthcoming, may be in part impressed 
 for its acquisition. In Ireland Joint Stock Banks make 
 no difficulty about advancing a certain portion of the 
 money to poultry societies at a moderate rate of interest, 
 say, 4 per cent., on condition of gradual repayment. Three 
 ■or four hundred pounds will, as a rule, fuUy suffice for aU 
 that is wanted. The money had best be raised by shares, 
 which may or may not be apportioned according to the 
 number of hens brought to the common enterprise. It 
 will not be amiss to take an undertaking from members 
 to dehver the eggs of so many hens for a certain period. 
 In Denmark that period is a twelve-month at least. 
 
 In Denmark dehvery of eggs to the society is generally 
 by weight. That system, which is now generally con- 
 sidered the most convenient, is also becoming more and 
 more common in Germany, where the number of co-opera- 
 tive poultry societies is considerable ; and it has made 
 
 I 
 
ii8 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 its way into Ireland. In old fashioned England people 
 still appear to hang back. But one may expect to see 
 our country, in due course, faUing into line with others. 
 
 Once the eggs have reached the society, the first 
 thing to be done is to examine them for their outward 
 appearance. That apphes mainly to the points of dirt, 
 or misshapenness, or cracks and general condition — 
 although the very first glance, often enough, tells not 
 a httle of the tale to be extracted by subsequent testing. 
 Newlaid eggs have a peculiar gloss upon them and a 
 bright colour. Dirty or cracked eggs must be unmerci- 
 fully rejected. And Danish societies do not hesitate 
 to expel members who repeat the offence of delivering 
 bad eggs. Rough shells constitute more or less of a 
 defect, because they lead consumers to suspect that the 
 rough shelled egg is a "pickled "one sold for new. Rough 
 shelled eggs accordingly should be discouraged. 
 
 Such general examination is followed by the now well- 
 known "testing" or "candling" — in a dark room. The 
 egg is held up against a powerful light which, hke an 
 X-ray, tells what is inside — whether a bright yolk, with 
 a small airspace, or an advanced ovum, with a large air- 
 space and a film or shadow, or, worst of all, an eggsub- 
 stance in course of conversion into a Uve bird. The more 
 powerful is the hght, the more clearly will it reveal what 
 is within the shell ; and the more expeditiously wiU it 
 admit of the examination being carried out. But in no 
 case should this be done in a careless manner. Some 
 societies, grudging the time, have devised a method of 
 "candhng" a whole tray of 120 eggs together, ready 
 for packing, in their several compartments, which is said 
 ^o occupy only about half a minute. Such testing, however, 
 cannot possibly be as thorough and trustworthy as 
 testing egg by egg. And, really, even that does not take 
 very long. A trained tester may be relied upon for testing; 
 five or six hundred eggs within an hour. 
 
DISPOSAL OF EGGS AND POULTRY. 119 
 
 Xext comes the "grading," which is at the same time 
 preparatory to packing, for the "graded " eggs are at once 
 put mto their several compartments in trays, which are 
 afterwards placed in a box and firmly secured for carriage, 
 with straw between, to prevent their breaking. Such 
 boxes are now made with very convenient arrangements, 
 and safe to prevent crushing. "Grading " means sorting 
 according to size. Its object is to obtain uniformity of 
 product— uniformity above all things in size, though it 
 may also be done for colour. The question of colour 
 in eggs is, as a matter of intrinsic value, of little account ; 
 however the varying taste for either white, or tinted] 
 or brown eggs may locally influence the price. A trayful 
 of eggs, if of exactly the same size and shape, presents an 
 incomparably more attractive appearance than a promis- 
 cuous assortment of eggs of all sizes and shapes. There 
 are in this country mostly six sizes recognised, namely, 
 from I3lbs. to the "long " hundred up to i81bs. French 
 societies are content with only three different sizes. 
 "Grading" is done by eye and hand. Where eggs are 
 not dehvered by weight, small eggs are still placed by 
 themselves and allowed for at a reduced rate, because 
 they are not liked. 
 
 One very important point, upon which co-operative 
 poultry societies will be in a good position to bring their 
 influence to bear, is the supply of eggs in winter. The 
 more steady the supply, the more secure is the market. 
 And the chronic absence of a winter supply of English 
 eggs, which is rather a reproach to our country, has 
 driven not a few dealers into the arms of Danish competi- 
 tors, who know well how to provide for such winter supply, 
 which sells not only itself, but also the summer eggs, to 
 greater advantage. There is no earthly reason why 
 this state of things should continue. A winter supply 
 of eggs is merely a matter of arraingement. Maintaining 
 
I20 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 the laying birds in laying condition during the winter, 
 by keeping them active, giving them a run, so as to harden 
 their muscles, either in the open or else in a shed — on the 
 floor of which there should be grains of wheat strewed 
 beneath a cover of chaff and rubbish, so as to tempt them 
 (rasores as they are) to a scratch (instead of reducing 
 them to a lazy hibernating condition, which softens their 
 muscles, as if they were intended for table use, by keeping 
 them idle) , providing them not too liberally with food, but 
 giving in that food also some nitrogenous matter to make 
 up for the spring worms (also chopped and dried clover) — 
 all this will make hens lay if they are laying birds. A 
 steady market is of importance above all things to a 
 co-operative society, which is dependent upon continuity 
 of business. And there is no one to bring pressure to 
 bear more effectually upon individual poultry keepers than 
 such a society, whose fiat is known to be not arbitrary 
 but dictated by the interest of the influenced member 
 himself. 
 
 It need scarcely be expressly stated that societies will 
 do well to affiliate themselves to a larger organisation 
 which, while taking proper security for good, conscientious 
 service, authorises them to use its own brand as a trade- 
 mark. That trade-mark may be made a safe passport 
 to the market. The practical value of a "Clearing house 
 for eggs," such as has recently been set up in London by 
 the National Poultry Organisation Society, requires still 
 to be tested by experience. The Danes have their Egg 
 Export Society for exportation. And in Germany, within 
 the various provincial unions, co-operative service is so 
 well centralised that members secure all the benefits of 
 centralisation as a means of delivering to the best market 
 in their own organisation. 
 
 The settlement of accounts as between the society 
 and its members should be prompt. No matter whether 
 
DISPOSAL OF EGGS AND POULTRY. 121 
 
 payment be regulated by weight or by number, a price 
 should be agreed upon which leaves a margin for manage- 
 ment expenses and something more, to be eventually 
 allowed as "dividend." The increase in money paid 
 for eggs under co-operative deahng is such as to admit 
 of payment at once of the current market rate. And that 
 price should be dealt out at frequent, regular intervals, 
 sa}' monthly. 
 
 Opinion is not at one on the point frequently mooted, 
 whether, by the side of the sale of eggs, a poultry society 
 will do well also to take up the fattening of poultrj- for 
 sale for table use. Obviously there is ample scope for 
 useful action for it in providing for its members eggs 
 of good strains for hatching or, it may be, ready hatched 
 chicks. (By the side of hens' eggs it may also deal in ducks' 
 eggs, for which there is always a market.) The fattening 
 of poultry, on the other hand, is a line of business in 
 which the conditions specifically calling for co-operative 
 action come much less into play than in the sale of eggs. 
 A co-operative society may indeed render excellent service 
 in organising the sale of fattened poultry as coming fjom 
 individual fatteners, wherever there is promise of anything 
 being gained by such proceeding. There ought, for 
 instance, to be a good opening for business on such lines 
 with the distributive societies. But otherwise there seems 
 to be little in the fattening business which specifically 
 requires intervention by a co-operative society, the object' 
 of which is by combination of many contributors to 
 produce bulk, quahty that cannot be suspected, and 
 uniforniity. Bulk is much less of a necessity in the 
 supply of table poultry than in tliat of eggs ; uniformity 
 is scarcely attainable — even if it be desirable : and of 
 quality consumers prefer to judge for themselves in each 
 individual case. A distributive store which lays itself 
 out for fattening pigs does so to turn the mass of nutritive 
 
122 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 refuse accumulating under its trade to profitable account 
 as a side-use to its business. A co-operative bacon curing 
 establishment relies upon its members for their pigs 
 ready fattened, coming from so many individuals, to be 
 converted into one common mass of bacon. A co-operative 
 poultry society might indeed fatten its members' chicks. 
 But in that case the sale will be simply a commercial 
 venture and the subsequent fattening wiU be a speculative 
 undertaking, in which members act only as pecuniary 
 shareholders, not as active participators. The peculiar 
 skill required for selecting the right birds, treating them 
 in the right way, and stopping feeding or cramming 
 at precisely the right moment — without which, there 
 may be loss — are qualities which agricultural folk may 
 very well acquire for themselves — as witness Sussex 
 results — and are even likely to prefer applying every 
 one for himself. 
 
 Of course, in the right place, there is "money" in 
 poultry fattening as there is in egg raising. But there 
 are very great differences between the two industries. 
 Different kinds of poultry are required for each, and 
 different situations of country. The active, restless 
 bird which is a good layer, is a poor bird to lay on flesh. 
 Vice versa the soft fleshed bird, which provides succulent 
 chicken's breasts, is a sorry layer of eggs. Once more, 
 the clay soil with a rather backward character, on which 
 egg layers may yield good results, will not at all suit a 
 fattening fowl, which requires to mature readily and 
 delights in a dry, warm soil, with plenty of sunshine. 
 And climate and general conditions come the more into 
 account that fattening is an artificial process which no 
 fowl can stand for more than a limited period — ^not e\en 
 every fowl for the accepted maximum space of three 
 weeks. Co-operative poultry fattening has of late been 
 taken up to some extent in Germany, and satisfactory 
 
DISPOSAL OF EGGS AND POULTRY. 123 
 
 results are said to have been obtained. It appears also 
 to have been tried here and there in the United Kingdom. 
 Perhaps, however, cautious co-operators will do well to 
 await the results of further experiments before rushing 
 into a line of business which, on the face of it, appears 
 rather intended for individual enterprise than for common 
 action. 
 
124 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 VII.— DISPOSAL OF GRAIN. 
 
 Various causes have led agriculturists abroad, who 
 have shown readier resource in such matters than our own, 
 to try their hand at the collective sale of grain. This can 
 scarcely be held surprising. For, after all, in whatever 
 proportion the area covered by it may have been reduced, 
 grain still figures very prominently among our farm crops, 
 as the crop which in most cases constitutes, so to speak, 
 the farmers' " ready cash." As the causes suggesting the 
 new departure have varied, so, very naturally, have also 
 the methods put into use and the results obtained. At 
 one time, when Agrarianism had very much the upper 
 hand in Prussia, • and the Government obligingly voted 
 five million marks in support of grain stores — to benefit the 
 privileged class of landowners — most grotesquely ambitious 
 ideas were afloat as to results, and a second South Sea 
 era seemed to have set in. Every one in the movement 
 persuaded himself, so relates Professor Thiess — who at 
 that. time was General Secretary of the largest and most 
 influential Agricultural Co-operative Union, and therefore 
 had good means of knowing — that he was going to grow 
 rich by appropriating by degrees the wealth of others. 
 The bubble came ; the bubble grew ; and the bubble 
 burst. And all the king's horses and all the king's men 
 could not put the State aided grain stores together again. 
 Nobody would look at them. That gave co-operative 
 grain stores for the time a decidedly bad name ; and there 
 was not a httle jeering among opponents — who were right 
 enough, as it happened, in their condemnation of the 
 methods adopted and the objects aimed at, but who failed 
 
DISPOSAL OF GRAIN. 125 
 
 altogether to discern that under such disappointing husk 
 there might he concealed an after all very valuable kernel. 
 German landowners and those who patronised them had 
 simply allowed themsel\-es to be carried away by a rushing 
 tide, without chart, rudder or compass, and had in the 
 rush lost their heads. They had started on the wrong 
 tack altogether. They had heard that there were wheat 
 " corners " in the United States succeeding magnificently 
 in •• rigging the market"— thanks to the " Elevators " 
 which they had at their disposal. (This was at a time 
 when American " Elevators " were still all in private 
 hands.) Why should not they start similar " Elevators " 
 and become rich hke Mr. Leiter ? A Pomeranian land- 
 lord made it his task to " study " " Elevators." And full 
 of his brilliant ideas, the realisation of which was to bring 
 unheard-of Plenty to his class, he set a propaganda going, 
 in which he found only too ready disciples among the 
 junkers, and accordingly a ready supporter in the Govern- 
 ment, which loves junkers and willingly places the general 
 taxpayer's mone\' at their disposal. There was to be gold 
 for those who wanted. Every squire was to become a 
 " Leiter." However, even Mr. Leiter could not carry his 
 game completely through. And the five million marks 
 handed over to these modern " Laws " to bubble with 
 bubbled out ^-ery quickly indeed, leaving blank disappoint- 
 ment behind. The idea of capturing the market was on the 
 face of it preposterous. German " cornhouses " — including 
 many outside the charmed circle raised by Government 
 grants — a year or two ago did a business of about ;^i, 000,000 
 a year. That is a respectable figure enough — even though 
 a considerable proportion of that trade was due to the 
 Government becoming a purchaser by favour. But it 
 is nothing to the collective trade in corn done in Germany, 
 even in German-grown grain alone, probabty about a 
 tM-entieth. And with such a popgun there was no war 
 to be waged upon the well-armed market. 
 
126 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 The covetous squires had not been allowed to go 
 without due warning. Professor Wygodzinski had cautioned 
 them that they were operating upon wholly untried 
 ground. Others, leaders in the agricultural co-operative 
 movement, demonstratively held back. The chairman of 
 one of the leading German Agricultural Co-operative Unions 
 remarked to me chuckhngly in 1903 : " You do not know 
 how thankful I am that I did not consent to ' burn my 
 fingers ' with cornhouses." 
 
 The false object pursued was really only one of the 
 causes accounting for miscarriage. The Government grant 
 necessarily tempted the promoters to unreasoning extra- 
 vagance. " How could you expect our people to calculate 
 closely when they had this heap of unearned money 
 forced upon them ? " So observed to me last summer 
 the chairman of another great sectional Union, one of the 
 ablest men in the movement, in whose very locality one 
 of these pretentious " cornhouses " had come to grief, 
 but in which also other " cornhouses," managed on different 
 principles, answer very well. Things were done on a 
 grand and costly scale. Storehouses were built too big 
 for their requirements — and more than one was built in 
 the wrong place. Costly machinery, going much beyond 
 actual or likely requirements, was set up. And in the 
 last place, as Professor Thiess is particularly careful to 
 point out, the " shoemaker " ventured a good bit beyond 
 his " last." Farmers as a rule have not the capacity for 
 acting as dealers in corn. The managers had in the end 
 to confess themselves vanquished by the regular dealers. 
 
 Thus ended one of the most showy and noisy episodes 
 in the history of German Agricultural Co-operation. 
 
 However, its result has not been all loss. If a heavy 
 fee has had to be paid for schooling, knowledge has certainly 
 been got. Organisers had had their bold fling and would 
 know how to do better in the future. If the grain stores 
 
DISPOSAL OF GRAIN. 127 
 
 — of this kind — had in general closed with balances' on 
 the wrong side, it was now known what were the causes. 
 And in any case their neighbourhood had benefited. 
 There could be no question that prices had improved and 
 quotations had become more honest. Competition had 
 done part of its work. 
 
 And a good deal that is valuable has remained. When, 
 in opening the 191 1 Congress of the Imperial Union 
 of Agricultural Co-operative Societies of Germany, Herr 
 Johannsen presented his Report upon the condition of 
 Agricultural Co-operation in his province of Hanover, he 
 observed : — " Our grain stores set up with our own money 
 are doing -well; those set up with Government money 
 have gone the way of all establishments of the same class." 
 Hearty laughter greeted his closing words. " It is best 
 to be candid," so said Herr Rabe, chairman of the Sectional 
 Union of the Province of Saxony — in which the worst 
 collapses have occurred — a year or two ago at the annual 
 Congress of German Agricultural Co-operative Societies ; 
 " there is no denying that we have burnt our fingers badly 
 over the first introduction of ' cornhouses ' ; and that 
 has happened, in the first place, because we were ignorant 
 of the conditions that we had to deal with, and, in the 
 second, because we confidingly placed ourselves in the 
 hands of the engineers providing the machinery, who set 
 up costly plant without for a moment considering whether 
 the concern would pay or not." The official Reichsan- 
 zeiger admits the same thing. Results have been best, 
 so it owns, where State aid has been least. 
 
 To take another instance — as a direct outcome of that 
 misdirected State-subsidised movement, there is, in the 
 pre-eminently agricultural province of Pomerania (which 
 produces much more corn than it can itself consume) 
 a very satisfactory organisation of the co-operative grain 
 trade, a network of local stores being spread out over the 
 
128 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 country, which dispose of their corn — twenty or thirty times 
 their own holding successively in the year, in their great 
 emporium — through the Central Warehouse, owned and 
 worked by the Co-operative Central Sale and Purchase 
 Society of Pomerania — at Gotzlow. Gotzlow is a suburb 
 of Stettin, situated on the Oder, with river wharves on 
 one side and a railway siding on the other, from which 
 large quantities are annually shipped to Scandinavia and 
 to England, or else forwarded to Western Germany. 
 That is a distinct advantage for contributing members, 
 who now net a better price on their corn by from 4s. to, 
 in some cases, 8s. a ton. Gotzlow sells about 80,000 tons 
 of corn every year. 
 
 Similar valuable remnants have been left elsewhere. 
 Apart from this, the Prussian " boom " has imparted a 
 healthy stimulus to the movement in other quarters. 
 
 While Prussian squires were bhndly following their 
 Jack o' Lantern leader in the North, attempts to bring 
 the undoubtedly important problem to a satisfactory 
 solution on very different lines were being pushed forward 
 elsewhere. There can be no doubt that something of such 
 a solution has been found. Howe\fer, unfortunately, even 
 on this ground there is the disconcerting interference of 
 the would-be fairy godmother, to wit, the State, to reckon 
 with, which makes it dif&cult to determine with any 
 positi\'eness, how much is gained on one side and how 
 much lost on the other. 
 
 In truth, the question of co-operative sale of grain 
 was bound- to occupy the agricultural mind in Germany, 
 and it has done so in some places since the middle of the 
 past century. It ought to be borne in mind that the grain 
 trade is in Germany organised in a very different fashion 
 from our own. It is far more decentralised. Local 
 markets still command a sort of independence. The 
 differences occurring in local prices are indeed startling. 
 
DISPOSAL OF GRAIN. 129 
 
 as was to be seen in the charts and tables prepared in 
 connection with the inquiry of 1903 preceding new legisla- 
 tion on the Tariff. In the South of Germany this state of 
 things is particularly marked. The dealer accordingly 
 had a very free hand and could worry the impecunious 
 farmer not a little. That means that, in spite of Count 
 Billow's tariff, a very heavy pressure was brought to bear 
 upon the local producer of corn. And it was to get away 
 from such pressure that people since a long time attempted 
 to combine and eventually succeeded in doing so. 
 
 Furthermore, rural Germany is sorely afflicted with 
 dealers' usury, against which the small owner finds himself 
 helpless without combination. The man who bought his 
 com was the same gombeen man who sold him fertihsers 
 and other indispensable agricultural requirements, and 
 occasionally advanced him money. And if the small 
 farmer would not take his adulterated fertihsers from this 
 man, he in his turn dechned to take his corn off the farmer's 
 hands. When he took it, he took it at his own price, and 
 at his own time. There we have the " touch of Nature " 
 which makes " the whole world kin," from the banks of 
 the Shannon, across the plains of Germany and Russia, 
 to the baxiks of the distant Ganges. What philanthropic 
 men are trying to do in India by means of their " Dharma 
 Golas " (grain stores, or " grain banks," as Indian Registrars 
 have taken to caUing them) to rescue the rayat from the 
 clutches of the rapacious bania (who gives him rice or 
 paddy at one price and buys it back at another) , men like 
 Raiffeisen and his pupil Dr. Heim, who have achieved a 
 distinct success in dealing with the problem, have tried 
 to accompUsh for the Bauer in Germany. The Raiffeisen 
 system is in truth responsible for very much that is good, 
 that has been achieved in this connection ; and more 
 specifically the number of small local stores, for small 
 local men, centrahsed under a provincial head, to be met 
 
130 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 with, say, in electoral Hesse and in Bavaria — the two 
 model provinces in this respect — but also elsewhere, are 
 its own proper children. They do not stand by them- 
 selves, but form departments of what we know by the 
 name of " Raiffeisen Banks," which are in truth intended 
 as societies for satisfying all wants of their members that 
 Co-operation can meet — buying and selling no less than 
 advancing money. It is not by any means necessary to 
 form distinct societies to do the grain selling. Where 
 business is heavy we had better do so. Among small men 
 a " bank " or a " sale and purchase society " wiU answer 
 the purpose equally well, if only it equips itself adequately 
 for its task and carries on the business £is a distinct 
 branch in a businesshke way. 
 
 In some parts of Germany the determining cause has 
 been another than the presence of the usurer. In Saxony, 
 to take one instance, the figure of the small miUer, once 
 so famiUar to the small farmer, had wholly disappeared. 
 There were big steam mills, whose owners did not want 
 to be troubled with the small lots that peasants had to 
 offer. They ignored these men entirely, getting their 
 corn in large consignments by big contracts from elsewhere. 
 That means that the small farmer was left at the mercy 
 of the small dealer, who buys up small lots to resell to the 
 larger dealer ; this man, in his turn, disposes of such corn 
 in large quantities to the steam miller. There are thus 
 two or three tolls levied upon the corn on its way from the 
 producer to the ultimate consumer. Why should not the 
 producers keep such tolls for themselves ? They can do 
 so by combination. 
 
 Lastly, there is in some districts profitable business 
 to be done by combining, in order to obtain better 
 value as seed corn for particularly favoured varieties of 
 corn suited to peculiar districts. In Switzerland small 
 cowkeepers combine to form collectively pedigree herds. 
 
DISPOSAL OF GRAIN. 131 
 
 the beasts of which fetch, not butchers' but breeders' 
 prices, which are much higher. In France, cultivators 
 ni favoured districts combine to sell their red clover seed 
 m common. In the same way growers of " Probstei " 
 rye — the fa\'oured seed corn all over Germany — in Holstein 
 have combined — since as long ago as 1885 — to sell their 
 small lots of rye for seed. And so do the peasantry of the 
 Fichtel mountains in Bavaria, to dispose at better prices 
 — though not exclusively for seed — of their prized mountain 
 oats. German farmers generally take their seed by pre- 
 ference from a colder place, where the conditions of vegeta- 
 tion are less propitious. So they go to the mountains for 
 their oats, and to Holstein and Sweden for their rye and 
 wheat. Similar things are done elsewhere. It is com- 
 bination which makes climatic or topical advantages 
 convertible into money for the small man. And this 
 practice foreshadows one that has subsequently been 
 adopted with distinct advantage, even where corn is not 
 cultivated expressh' for seed, namely, that of making 
 local crops, passing through the co-operative grain store, 
 uniform — just as we do apples and pears, and as dairy 
 societies do butter and cheese — so as to secure for them 
 a better market. By such means Co-operation has it in 
 its power to benefit the local com grower not a little. 
 
 Although a solution of the problem has been attempted 
 since a long time there proved to be what looked like 
 insuperable obstacles in the way. The most formidable 
 of these was this, that people could not be brought to 
 deliver up to sample. That is a general complaint abroad 
 — in France and in Italy as in Germany and Austria — 
 which the little experience which we have had in the matter 
 in the Agricultiural Organisation Society has shown that 
 we are, in this country, exposed to in a much smaller degree. 
 Our societies have repeatedly negotiated an occasional 
 sale of members' corn. And although such casual business 
 
132 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 does not in any way realise what co-operative sale of corn 
 under our present view should aim at, at any rate no 
 exception has in any case been taken to the quality of 
 the corn delivered. Abroad things are different. And 
 in 1883, at the very inception of the first tentative move- 
 ment undertaken by so skilful an organiser as Dr. Haas 
 in what was then his modest httle Hessian Union — since 
 developed to the " Imperial Union " with about 20,000 
 societies — the attempt to sell corn on co-operative hnes 
 had to be wholly abandoned for this cause. 
 
 It may be appropriate now to ask what we hope and 
 expect to gain by organising co-operative grain storing 
 and grain seUing. It is not, as observed, merely to be 
 able to carry through an occasional sale of a lot belonging 
 to one of our members. That is a thoroughly legitimate 
 object — which, moreover, is not at all unlikely to lead 
 up to more permanent and more substantial business, 
 and by means of which our man may well hope to secure 
 a rather better price. With regard to such trade we stand 
 on the whole in this favourable position that, although 
 we have not War Offices and other public departments 
 to befriend us — as they do abroad, in Bavaria to the 
 •extent of nearly 70 per cent, of their purchases, at pre- 
 ferential prices — ^we have large industrial stores and co- 
 operative mills to trade with, from which by the light of 
 past experience we have some sort of title to look for 
 •consideration carried to this point that, price and quality 
 being equal, our co-operative offers will be given the pre- 
 ference. For such business — and indee'd for other business 
 as well — we have, as abroad, no need of distinct grain 
 storing societies, even outside the Raiffeisen circle, 
 if only ordinary buying and seUing societies will make the 
 necessary provision for what is required. Grain storing 
 and grain selling are very commonly combined with other 
 ■sale and purchase — where Governments are purchasers. 
 
DISPOSAL OF GRAIN. 133 
 
 above all things with the sale of hay and straw. And 
 provided that there is adequate accommodation for all 
 the various goods, such combination answers well enough. 
 
 Our real object, however, is to secure for our members, 
 if possible, a larger and more enduring benefit. They are 
 to have a market always open to them, in which they 
 know that their produce will at all times be taken at a 
 fair price — a market exempt from those violent ups and 
 downs, stringencies and excessive ease, of the dealers' 
 market. They are to be made independent of dealers 
 and not exposed to their oppression and fraud. There 
 are to be facilities for their obtaining money in advance 
 on the security of their warehoused corn, without their 
 being made to pay for such accommodation " through 
 the nose." 
 
 Co-operative grain stores can accomplish this, when 
 properly conducted and federated. Indeed, they have 
 accomplished a great deal of it already. Even in the 
 small, timidly tentative pioneer estabhshments which 
 have found their way into France — there are very few of 
 ihem — it is on record that slightly more money is paid 
 for corn than in the open market. In Germany the differ- 
 ence is more marked — quite apart from those more or less 
 subventional prices that Governments allow to favoured 
 societies " for the promotion of Agriculture." There is, 
 as Major Endell explained at a recent Congress of the 
 " Imperial Union," a difference of from four to eight 
 shillings per ton, and even more. There is a lesser differ- 
 ence, of which no record is kept (but which is none the less 
 real), in the prices paid by dealers generally, having the 
 fear of the competing store before their eyes. And there 
 is a difference, by no means unimportant, in the market 
 quotations published, which issuing authorities, under the 
 influence of dealers, were in the habit of keeping below 
 the true point — just as our published wool prices, settled 
 
 K 
 
134 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 during the local market dinner, are wont to keep below 
 the price at which wool passes from hand to hand, once 
 the dinner is over. In provinces where co-operative grain 
 stores are sufficiently strong, these now publish their own 
 quotations, by the side of the others. And corn is also now 
 currently sold in many places by the co-operative quota- 
 tion. For the co-operative societies' figures are those at 
 which they themselves are wilhng to buy — ^not those at 
 which they sell. 
 
 With such aids the dreaded competition of dealers 
 has turned out much less formidable than was apprehended. 
 It is quite true that Grain Stores are execrated by local 
 dealers and that small farmers are either teased or else 
 cajoled into deserting them. However, on the other hand, 
 large buyers, such as steam miUers, have in many instances 
 found out that there is a distinct advantage for them in 
 contracting for large quantities with a society, more 
 particularly where the corn cultivated is uniform in kind ; 
 and they buy gladly from them. That quite makes up 
 for the hostility of the small dealers. To the latter, of 
 course, the preferential orders given by pubhc departments 
 constitute a real grievance. Also the very much improved 
 cleaning of grain, which has to be set down to the credit 
 -of co-operative granaries, has secured the latter not a 
 little popularity with buyers generally. For the larger quan- 
 tities handled, and the discipUne exercised in the interest 
 of the common concern enables committees to produce 
 corn of distinctly greater cleanness than is otherwise to 
 be met with. 
 
 In this way it is found that a market is after aU to 
 be got. 
 
 The next requirement is that that market should be 
 made enduring. For, unless it is so, Co-operation would 
 fail to secure to its members that which these above all 
 things value, that is, independence of the dealer ; and 
 
DISPOSAL OF GRAIN 13; 
 
 the desired certain outlet for members' corn will be want- 
 ing. It is on this ground that merely occasional sales 
 cannot be held to realise anything liked the object placed 
 before us. Custom cannot be made certain unless there 
 is permanency. And none of such improvements as 
 the standardising of local corn and the creation of special 
 varieties are to be attained without it. It is necessary 
 to the large society ; it is no less indispensable to the 
 small, which is likely to be the form of combination that 
 we shall for the most part have to cultivate if we adopt 
 any. Permanency of the market necessarily presupposes- 
 permanency of supply. The discovery of this fact has led 
 organisers of co-operative grain stores to abandon their 
 timid shrinking from the condition of compulsory delivery 
 — of all corn not required by the member himself — which 
 in the earliest stages of the movement not a httle hampered 
 progress. So long as members were not under an obUga- 
 tion, they remained exposed to the temptation of accepting 
 an offer from a dealer, purposely made seductive, for their 
 good corn, and so left their society either without rehable 
 supply, or else supplied only with the leavings of the dealer's 
 eclectic marketing. On the other hand, it is not co-opera- 
 tive to buy, as is done in some German grain stores, from 
 non-members as well. There is that nasty " labourer in 
 the vineyard " grudge of benefit done to outsiders by 
 co-operative trading, which makes co-operators envious. 
 At any rate, they would have the small dealer's profit 
 upon outsiders' corn, and gain in prestige by having large 
 quantities to sell. Much the better plan is by refusing 
 to purchase from outsiders to induce such to come in. 
 
 Although members are now generally required to bind 
 themselves to dehver, they are not placed under any obhga- 
 tion in respect of time. They cannot reasonably be bound 
 to that, but must be left free to deliver whenever it suits 
 themselves. Really the time of delivery makes com- 
 
136 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 paratively little difference to the member, seeing that he 
 is permitted to raise money upon what becomes in truth 
 a deposit in grain, at the ordinary rate of interest. This 
 is really more a matter of cred?t than of grain storing. 
 But the existence of a grain store makes the transaction 
 considerably easier, among other causes, because there 
 is a place where to store the grain. Provision for credit 
 is necessary, because the rnain cause of the farmer's depend- 
 ence upon his dealer now is that, for the sake of having 
 money, he finds himself compelled to sell when under 
 ordinary circumstances corn is cheap. There are districts 
 in which such right to' borrow is made scarcely any use of. 
 But there is provision made for it everywhere. And in 
 many districts it is largely resorted to, even Government 
 assistance being invoked to provide the funds — wherever 
 the State acts as patron. The proportion of the value 
 pledged allowed to be levied varies, generally speaking, 
 between 75 and 80 per cent, of the market value at the 
 time. With the help of access so given to its purse, the 
 i Society emancipates anyone who chooses to be emancipated 
 entirely from thraldom under dealers. 
 
 Such are the direct advantages to be secured by 
 combination. But the indirect advantages of improving 
 local cultivation of corn, standardising it, and of organising 
 Agriculture, are certainly no less substantial. Uniformity 
 and " standard " tell in respect of corn just as they do 
 in respect of other produce. And to the small cultivator 
 the grain store becomes a boon, such as our small holders 
 are hkely to find it " bad business " to do without. 
 
 The Co-operative Grain Store, like the Co-operative 
 " Creamery " or " Cheesery," wants to secure, retain and 
 improve its market by acquiring a reputation for dis- 
 posing of superior produce of a uniform kind. Accordingly 
 it brings personal pressure to bear upon its members to 
 cultivate the varieties of grain most suitable to the locality 
 
DISPOSAL OF GRAIN. 137 
 
 (not rarely undertaking to provide the seed), and to 
 cultivate it well. It teaches— as do " Control Societies," 
 Dairies and Egg Societies. And the results are to be seen 
 in an improved description of corn produced in the locality, 
 well cultivated, well cleaned and uniform, so that com- 
 paratively considerable quantities may be put upon the 
 market. Under such influence corn growing has become 
 more perfect and more profitable, and the entire district 
 has been benefited by co-operative selling. 
 
 That consideration quite naturally leads us on to the 
 best form among those hitherto practised, to be given to 
 the society. Such " best form " among* ourselves appears 
 decidedly to be that of small societies, with unpretentious 
 equipment, operating each one within a restricted, self- 
 contained district, for small farmers and small holders — 
 something like the societies already spoken of as having 
 worked very satisfactorily in electoral Hesse and Bavaria. 
 It is possible that we may have room for the large stores 
 after the Pomeranian pattern. It is possible that large 
 farmers may find their account in combining to furnish 
 large quantities of marketable grain to dispose of directly 
 to the ultimate consumer. However, against any gain 
 to be so made the cost of management and keeping will 
 have to be set, which is rather considerable. And any 
 credit needed is, as already observed, to be got without 
 a store society. However, for the small holder a store 
 society ready to garner his grain, to clean and dress it, 
 and ultimately to sell it, is hkely to prove something 
 approaching to a necessity. His own accommodation for 
 storing grain is likely to be small indeed, and. defective 
 at that. 
 
 For this reason in not a few foreign grain stores mem- 
 bers are allowed to store their grain temporarily, at a 
 moderate charge, even without desiring to dispose of it 
 through the store. That is not hkely to commend itself 
 
138 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 as a general rule. However, our small man has no cleaning 
 apparatus, no place where to keep his com sweet ; he 
 may be altogether ignorant of the way of doing so. The 
 grain store wiU have not only the requisite space, but also 
 all the necessary apparatus for turning out an unim- 
 peachable article. In some small societies members are 
 allowed the use of the cleaning machinery, taking the 
 tailcorn, &c. away with them, and leaving only the good 
 com. But the society is likely to use its apphances with 
 better skill and better effect itself. In large stores there 
 is even sometimes a desiccating apparatus. This is now 
 very often moved by electric power, the portable motor 
 being freely applicable on the corn floor. By a curious 
 conceit it is popularly termed an "irrigator," because the 
 motion of the corn made to drop through the air resembles 
 that of descending water. Such treatment is reported 
 very useful in the case of damp corn, but also a trifle 
 expensive. The Prussian Government, when granting its 
 ^^250, 000 for " Comhouses," itself estabUshed one at Berlin 
 for experiments, which have turned out of great interest 
 and some of them of practical value. Among other things 
 desiccation by artificial heat has there been proved to be 
 of distinct advantage, because it reduces both bulk and 
 weight ; at the same time it produces an article which 
 ■will keep and also " bake " much better than moist corn. 
 That does away with the awkward necessity to bakers in 
 northern Europe, and more specifically in our own humid 
 climate (in which we cultivate for the most part " red " 
 "wheat) having to resort to an admixture of a fair propor- 
 tion of wheat grown under a more powerful sun — by 
 preference Hungarian — because of native grain " baking " 
 badly. Artificial drying of our northern wheat does away 
 with such necessity.* 
 
 * The change so effected recalls the difference made in Japan 
 between "glutinous" and " non-glutinaus" rice, to the advantage 
 of the latter as a commercial article, although less nourishing- 
 
DISPOSAL OF GRAIN. 139 
 
 However, small as the " unit " society will, as a rule, 
 have to be, its organisers will be committing a serious 
 mistake if they leave it in isolation. Something more 
 will have to be said on this point at a future stage. Suffice 
 it here to observe that federation under a competent head, 
 taking as much as possible of the expert guidance upon 
 itself, is an important condition of success. 
 
 The setting up of grain stores in itself presents no 
 serious difficulties, unless they be of a financial nature. 
 And such ought not to be insuperable ; for every society 
 is allowed full freedom to cut its coat according to its 
 cloth. Where people embark upon the establishment of 
 a costly granary, to yield a fair profit upon a large turnover, 
 it is to be presumed that they will be possessed of the 
 means for doing this. There are grain stores which have 
 cost £16,000 or £17,000 to set up ; there are others which 
 have cost less, £200 and down to £75. According to the 
 needs of the particular case ought the equipment to be. 
 The dire fate which has overtaken the costly stores, 
 extravagantly set up with the help of Government money, 
 ought to serve as a warning that, although resort to loan 
 capital will certainly have to be admitted, this is not a 
 case for borrowing recklessly. The mere building repre- 
 sents only comparatively small pledgable security ; and 
 so do the appliances. In ambitious grain stores very much 
 money has been spent upon the mechanical apparatus. 
 But that is not, under the circumstances,' a very valuable 
 object to pledge. Its remunerativeness depends upon its 
 working. Apart from machinery, there was in the earliest 
 stages much waste practised, also, in the disposal of space 
 and multipHcation of partitions. Further reference will 
 have to be made to this. Experience has to some extent 
 corrected this tendency, and at present horizontal ware- 
 house space, though the best for keeping and "moving " 
 purposes, is carefully economised. Corn is now by preference 
 
i^o CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 stored in perpendicular tubes, miscalled " silos " — for a 
 " silo," in the original meaning of the term, is a bottle- 
 shaped receptacle, dug underground — which take up 
 much less room. But that presupposes that the com is 
 all of one quality and sufftciently dry. For, although there 
 is stirring machinery in the" silo," grain at all moist would 
 heat or go mouldy in little time. However, corn is not 
 usually kept for long together in " silos," which are used 
 by preference where grain passes in and out many times 
 a year. It is for such storage also that the artificial 
 desiccating method is found useful, stirring being practised 
 by electric power. The horizontal floors are now placed 
 above the " silos." There is no need to enter into further 
 details as to appliances for hoisting and discharge. In smaU 
 parish grain stores there is nothing of the sort. And 
 nothing is wanted. One or two good, weU-ventilated 
 floors and the necessary cleaning apparatus, a balance 
 and the like, are sufficient. 
 
 However, there are difficulties to be faced alike on 
 the score of method and of skill in management. 
 
 In respect of method, a variety of systems have been 
 tried, and still continue in use. Grain has been sold with- 
 out being stored at all, by sample only ; and practical 
 men in industrially developed districts, in which means 
 of transport are plentiful and there is an active movement 
 of goods, tell me that they find this system quite sufficient 
 and very useful. It eliminates, as a rule, not one, but 
 several intermediaries, brings the ultimate consumer — • 
 that is, the miller, or in the case of brewing barley (which 
 is made a feature of in districts producing good barley) 
 the brewer, or else the dealer in provender — into direct 
 relations with the producer, and, by making all the pro- 
 ceedings open and public, does away with the hocus pocus 
 of false quotations. It is the society which issues the 
 quotation, not with a view to depressing prices in 
 
DISPOSAL OF GRAIh\ 141 
 
 the interest of buyers but, on the contrary, with the object 
 of attracting sellers by stating the true figure. All these 
 things are so much to the good for the farmer. But under 
 such method pawning the corn to be sold becomes difficult ; 
 so it practically excludes farmers who desire to raise money 
 upon such. 
 
 The next method in use is that of substituting agency 
 for, mere broking, storing the corn delivered, and dealing 
 with each distinct deposit, so to call it, by itself, charging 
 so much for keeping, and keeping in good condition, and 
 so much for commission on sale. This is for some reason,, 
 which is not very self-evident, often described as " the 
 most co-operative " method. There is this to be said 
 against it, that its requirements for space are very con- 
 siderable, and that it entails comparatively very heavy 
 expense • in keeping, which is, as Herr Johannsen has 
 rightly explained at Hanover, the most serious item of 
 outgoings in the whole process. 
 
 Such drawbacks are to be in a measure overcome by 
 "pooling" a number of grain deposits, blending them 
 for common sale, but still merely as a matter of agency. 
 It only means that so many depositors — as many as agree 
 to the proposal and have supplied grain suitable for the 
 process — enter into a common account, leaving the society 
 to dispose of the blended corn and taking each his share 
 in the proceeds, according to the quantity dehvered. 
 This undoubtedl}' gives greater scope for action by the 
 society and facihtates sale by producing a large quantity 
 of a uniform product. 
 
 In the last place, there is the method — which for 
 some reason or other has been pronounced the "least 
 co-operative of all," but which has proved the most suc- 
 cessful, and is becomiiig more widely practised from 
 year to year — under which the society buys the com 
 delivered at once, for its own proper account, and deals with 
 
742 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 it according to its own pleasure. That, of course, con- 
 stitutes it an entrepreneur, with interests of its own; 
 however, those interests are, after all, the interests also 
 of all its members. This system, so it is quite true, involves 
 a certain amount of risk, such as competent management 
 should reduce to a minimum. But it also presents distinct 
 advantages. And why the description "co-operative" 
 should be restricted to commission agency only, it is not 
 quite easy to divine. Having a free hand in deaUng with 
 its com, the society is in the best position for turning it 
 to good account. And such practice also gets it over one 
 doubtful point which has troubled some committees not 
 a little, the point, that is, of the rate at which com delivered 
 for sale is to be paid for. The object of the society is 
 to come as near a steady unchanging price for its members' 
 com as can be. The member who requires money at the 
 period when corn is a drug in the market is not to be 
 penalised for such want. He is to receive an advance, 
 which a Raiffeisen society can supply out of its own means 
 or credit, another society out of funds which an arrange- 
 ment with some bank is to make available. On the other 
 hand the society is not to be "bled " by all members forcing 
 their corn upon it at a time when com, say, is up, but 
 on the point of going down. Under such circumstances 
 the society might find itself exposed to loss. In Pomerania 
 at one time the principle adopted was to take the corn 
 delivered at any time, but to calculate its price, once 
 for all, only at the end of the year on the average of what 
 it had been sold for. That plan however, gave rise to 
 much dissatisfaction and had to be abandoned. Under 
 the " purchase right-out " plan the society may vary the 
 price paid more conveniently without giving umbrage, 
 though it may have to retain a small portion of the purchase 
 price until the end of the year, to keep itself safe. 
 
 The other cardinal pomt in the organisation of a 
 
DISPOSAL OF GRAIN. 143 
 
 grain store society is : — sound, commercial management. 
 That is a point of the greatest possible importance, but 
 which has been very much disregarded in the past. And 
 hence so much adverse experience. Frederick the Great 
 with his own keen judgment detected the necessity of 
 this as long ago as in 1770, when by a royal ordinance 
 he invited the " nobles "—that is, the landlords— of 
 Pomerania, to form societies for the sale of grain (more 
 particularly by exportation) but not without placing 
 "a sound and experienced commercial man (not a scape- 
 grace) " at the head of the management. Now, good 
 management costs money, which will repay itself only 
 ■out of sufficiently large transactions, and a golden 
 xule for grain storage societies is, as Herr Johannsen has 
 particularly urged quite recently, to economise in manage- 
 ment expenses to the utmost that is possible. So urgent 
 was Herr Johannsen upon this point that he went the 
 length of affirming that "our grain stores pay best when 
 we do not employ them " — that is, when we do not have 
 grain stored there, the watching and keeping of which 
 involves expense. However, good management is per- 
 fectly compatible with economy, if you sufficiently widen 
 the field of the manager's action. That is the plan which 
 has worked so well in electoral Hesse, under Raiffeisen 
 inspiration. The same system of clustering a considerable 
 number of small — and even fairly substantial — stores 
 round one central store, which exclusively directs the 
 entire operations, has been resorted to elsewhere, in 
 €very instance with good results. Pomerania has its 
 Gotzlow, Bavaria its Central Bureau at Munich, with 
 a central store under its charge at Moosach. However, 
 Pomerania caters, not without Government assistance, 
 for large agriculture as well as small, and of necessity 
 distributes its managerial competency in tolerably large 
 stores over a wide area, in which it finds suitable employ- 
 
144 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 ment ; and Bavaria has a rather generous Government 
 fairy standing at the elbow of its stores. In Hesse the- 
 movement is self-generated and self-supporting, by the 
 Raiffeisen societies acting for themselves, and it is in its 
 nature very like what it is likely to be in this country 
 among our small holders, once it comes to be estabhshed — 
 except that the stores set up, being placed at central 
 points, are larger than what we may expect to see set up 
 here. Nevertheless, the principle is the same, namely, 
 that under the supervision of the Central Committee 
 (at Cassel) the local stores are entrusted, not to" managers," 
 whose competency would call for good salaries, but to 
 simple "caretakers," who have no responsibility in the 
 disposal, except to attend well to the corn in their keeping 
 and obey orders from headquarters. The real manage- 
 ment is centered at Cassel. That appreciably reduces 
 the annual out-goings. Otherwise the Bavarian system 
 appears more in keeping with our presumable wants. 
 For, whereas Hesse has five stores, costing severally from 
 £3,000 to £4,350, Bavaria possesses (to a much larger 
 area) as many as 105, only four of which cost more than 
 £3,000, only eighteen of which more than £2,000, and the 
 cost of some of which goes down to as httle as £75. Thirty- 
 six keep below £600. Those stores are well distributed 
 , all over the country, at carefully selected points, where 
 delivery is easy for members, but also removal, by railways 
 communicating with the store. 
 
 The governing principle in all this arrangement 
 may be said to be this : — focus expert management at 
 a central point, but bring your storehouses, unpretending 
 as they may be, near to your members, so that they can 
 dehver without trouble ; provide whatever in the shape 
 of machinery or appliances is wanted, but keep down 
 management expenses. And, lastly, it may be added: 
 operate cautiously, avoiding such speculative trading as- 
 
DISPOSAL OF GRAIN 145 
 
 has wrecked more Government-assisted" cornhouses " than 
 one and has led the Raiffeisen Union from sheer misapplied 
 "co-operative solidarity" into heavy loss in Alsace. 
 That is a principle which promises to suit our own circum- 
 stances well. 
 
 The presence among us of so many well endowed 
 co-operative distributive societies, with mills and bakeries 
 attached to them, ought to render the work easier. Why 
 go so far afield as to Canada, as has been suggested to the 
 Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society, to buy land 
 there for growing its own corn — a business not without 
 risk — when there is British land under co-operative small 
 men's occupation to make tributary to these milling 
 establishments ? In Germany some grain stores have 
 their own miUs — some even bakeries — in order to carry 
 the process of collectively turning their produce to the 
 best account further. We have no need to think of such 
 -combinations. And both co-operative milling and co-op- 
 ■erative baking appear to be less risky and more remunera- 
 tive in the hands of distributive societies, which have the 
 command of a market, than of productive, which have 
 their market still to seek. France is, under the tuition 
 of Germany, setting its hand to co-operative grain storing. 
 It has a special "Permanent Committee" to study the 
 question and promote action. As the number of our 
 own small holders increases it may become time for us 
 to turn our attention to the same subject and enter upon 
 some cautious experiments. 
 
146 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE 
 
 VIII.— DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK. 
 
 The sale of live stock was one of the last branches- 
 of agricultural business to be brought under the sway 
 of Co-operation. I remember sales of single beasts carried 
 out in a co-operative way, undoubtedly to the vendors' 
 advantage, but in what must now be considered an only 
 desultory manner — for instance, by the Syndicat Central 
 of Paris — in the early nineties. But, if we except Danish 
 bacon curing, which stands on a separate footing, and 
 which was first under pressure, taken up on co-operative 
 Hnes in 1888, probably the formation of the hve stock sale 
 society of Bamstorf, in Hanover, in 1896, was the first 
 methodised attempt to bring the " One for All and AU for 
 One " to the relief of the rather badly treated producer 
 of butcher's meat. 
 
 And yet no branch of agricultural business may be 
 held to have required assistance from Co-operation more. 
 We are, in this country, in respect of such sale, in com- 
 parison with our neighbours, in a pecuUarly favoured 
 position. A recent Departmental Committee has reported 
 that there is no ground whatever for any apprehension 
 on the score of overpowering combination among dealers 
 in the meat trade. Even the much dreaded American 
 " Beef Trust " has been shown to have been more of a bogie 
 than a reahty. Accordingly we cannot understand what 
 it is for the meat market to have become, as it has in 
 protectionist Germany, the special preserve of small rings- 
 of great capitalists operating with enormous funds, who 
 hold all the business in their hands, placing subordinate 
 intermediaries — with freedom left to them to " whop their- 
 
DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK. 147- 
 
 own nigger," that is, to levy toll at will upon their victims. 
 — in subjection to themselves, and preying unmercifully 
 upon the farmer who had fondly flattered himself that 
 Protection, and the prohibition of meat imports from 
 outside, would secure to him an earthly Elysium. It 
 was the top trade which skimmed the cream off the pro 
 tectionist milk — the particular stratum of the trade which 
 is by nature the most inimical to the farmer. The farmer's 
 old famjhar friend, the local butcher, who bought hve stock 
 without an intermediary, as he required it for his shop, 
 was crowded out. Co-operation is bringing him back 
 now, to his own and to the farmer's rehef. It was the 
 pett\', over-reaching dealer, who was, as a henchman to 
 the substantial trader, let loose upon the farmer, with his 
 wiles and his tricks, who worried the farmer most. The 
 fanner must under any circumstances find himself un- 
 equally matched against such dealer. He is not himself, 
 in the trading sense, an expert in meat or cattle. He 
 knows nothing about the actual state of the markets, 
 which requires studying. He hears vague rumours about 
 good prices or bad prices. But he has no certain know- 
 ledge — above all things not the small man, who fattens 
 his pig or two, which are to repay what to him represents 
 fair outlay. He does not always know at what precise 
 time to kill, so as not either to underfatten, at a loss of 
 money ; or to overfatten, at a waste of keep. No more 
 is he certain what particular market he had best send to. 
 In any case, though he may occasionally over-rate the 
 value of his poor stock, he is more apt to undervalue his 
 best animals, those upon which he ought to make the best 
 profit. An authority in Germany has laid it down that 
 he generally sells them at only three-fourths of their real 
 value. A large farmer fattens six or twelve or more 
 animals at a time. They mature unequally. Is he to 
 sell the immature with the mature ? Or is he to face 
 
^48 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 the trouble of sending again and again ? Co-operation 
 steps in to take the sending off his hands and make up a 
 truckful worth dispatching to the market. It reduces 
 the expense and places the sale in expert hands. The 
 man who sells for him knows the market and is fully aware 
 what, to do and what not to do. The surest proof of 
 Co-operation having in this application shown itself a 
 success is this, that in Germany — which has thus far experi- 
 mented most largely in the matter, and in a particularly 
 searching way, and which does the most voluminous 
 business — it is found that nowhere has co-operative sale 
 of live stock been taken up, but the number of live stock 
 kept for marketing purposes in the district has appreciably 
 increased. 
 
 It is not indeed in the sale of fat stock only that 
 Co-operation can bring the farmer needed help. When 
 we come to consider the Live Stock Improvement Associa- 
 tions of Switzerland, we shall find that it may render 
 •exceedingly useful service also in the sale of breeding 
 animals, to be sold as pedigree beasts, as being raised in 
 co-operative pedigree herds. In a lesser, but still highly 
 useful degree, it can render the same service to the 
 ordinary farmer who desires to sell store cattle — or it may 
 be, animals for breeding purposes, though not of a co- 
 operative herd — ^bred or not bred by himself. The German 
 Central Live Stock Sale Association [Zentralviehstelle) at 
 Berlin — which aims at focussing the entire trade of the 
 ■country — actually owns a Lean Stock Market of about 
 sixty-seven acres, the largest lean stock market in Ger- 
 many, through which a very large number of lean beasts 
 pass every week — some ii,ooo truckfuls in the year — to 
 the benefit alike of buyers and sellers. It also executes 
 orders in large number for live stock of all kinds, required 
 ■either for store or for breeding purposes, by farmers all 
 over the empire. This is in Germany a matter of breed, not 
 
DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK. 149 
 
 of particular strains of blood. There are no " Duchesses " 
 nr " Bates " or " Booths," but Bavarian bullocks for 
 draught purposes or for fattening ; also Angeln cows, or 
 Swiss or Frisian or Dutch ; Yorkshire sows or Suffolk or 
 Berkshire ; Southdown sheep or Hampshire or Ram- 
 bouillet. The Central Association has its representatives 
 in the principal centres, experts in their own particular 
 line, and executes the orders which it receives to satisfaction. 
 
 The first branch of this particular business, however, 
 to be systematically taken up on co-operative lines was 
 that of the conversion of pork into bacon. For reasons 
 which scarcely require to be explained the main seUing 
 business thus far carried on, generally speaking, whether 
 for sale or for curing, has been in pigs. AUke in our own 
 country and in Germany and Austria — which do a far 
 bigger business than ourselves — it is pigs which figure 
 out and out most largely in co-operative trade. Pigs are 
 most generally kept. Everybody in fact rears pigs. 
 They are " the small man's moneybox." They are reared 
 to seU. And pigs mature most rapidly. They turn over 
 the money the most expeditiously. The trade in them 
 is also the easiest to organise. Trade in pigs is accordingly 
 that for which, more specifically among the adherents 
 of Co-operation, that is, among small men — who in Germany 
 own 93 per cent, of the pigs existing — there is the steadiest 
 and largest demand. It involves least risk and affords 
 the largest promise of success. For under our western sun 
 everybody eats pig. 
 
 However in Denmark — in that pioneer country of 
 Agricultural Co-operation, which, defending itself against 
 Germany, set the example in this matter — there were 
 special reasons for taking up bacon curing of all things. 
 Denmark has long been, in a minor way, a pig rearing 
 ■country. It possesses large forests, into which its pigs, 
 of the two aboriginal breeds — the long-legged high-backed 
 
ISO CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Jutland breed and the short, square and squat species of 
 the Islands— used to be sent for mast. And a fair number 
 of pigs were sold alive into Germany, which up to 1879 
 took practically all Denmark's spare agricultural produce. 
 Some such pigs were at Hamburg converted into bacon 
 for our eating. There were only very few bacon curing 
 estabhshments in Denmark itself, and those were in 
 private hands. The first co-operative factory was set up 
 in 1887. In 1888, hke a bolt from the blue, Germany 
 closed her frontier against Danish pigs. Denmark's 
 market was gone. However, Co-operation had already 
 taught Danes a lesson and instructed them how to parry 
 such blow. There was England to fall back upon ! How- 
 ever, England could not do with live pigs ; nor could such 
 well be sent all the distance in great numbers. So pigs 
 must needs be converted into bacon, for which England 
 offered an insatiable market, but one in which quality 
 was particularly prized. Dairies and egg factories had 
 trained Danes to acting together ; and act together they 
 did in this new instance with a wiU. The rapidity with 
 which the Danes accommodated themselves to the new 
 situation, in fact — so Dr. HoUmann, agricultural attache 
 to the German Consulate General at Copenhagen, has 
 reported to his Government — was truly remarkable. In 
 comparatively " no time " eight substantial co-operative 
 bacon factories had been set up, for building which the 
 banks readily advanced the money, the trustworthiness 
 of Danish co-operative societies as borrowers being already 
 established. Organisation presented no difficulties. For 
 farmers were quite wiUing to fall into line, to give a ten 
 years' undertaking to supply all their pigs — in some few 
 cases at any rate two-thirds of them — and to pledge their 
 unlimited liabiUty — for shares there were none — for repay- 
 ment of the debt within the space of ten years. Also 
 expert managers were readily found. 
 
DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK. 151 
 
 However, that was not all that was required. The 
 Enghsh market was willing to pay for quahty, but quality 
 it must have, and also uniformity. The old long-legged 
 pigs would no longer do. There must be boars of the 
 large white Yorkshire breed, to make the bacon acceptable 
 to English palates. Dr. HoUmann once more remarks upon 
 the wonderful rapidity with which the change from pure 
 Dapish to crossbred was brought about. What agricul- 
 tural societies, live stock improvement societies, control 
 societies, and even Government authorities had laboured 
 for in vain for years back, and what private bacon curers, 
 buying their pigs from unorganised Agriculture, could 
 never accomplish, was brought about " in the turning of 
 one's hand " {im Handumdrehen) by the magic of Co- 
 operation, simply because it was made the farmers' interest 
 that it should be so and the authority of the many over 
 each one proved irresistible. Uniformity was estabUshed" 
 — not of breed alone, nor of quality of bacon, but even of 
 size and weight of animals. The general weight is 130 lbs. 
 (about 133 lbs. avoirdupois) — which is less by nearly 
 35 lbs. than what we favour in this country. And the 
 breed is a cross between the native pig with the large 
 white Yorkshire breed, which is found to be the best 
 combination, exactly suiting the British palate. How- 
 ever such crossing, so it has Ukewise been discovered, 
 cannot be carried on indefinitely. The crossbred sow, 
 when used for breeding from, runs short of milk, and theje 
 is also excessive mortality among its offspring. Also, too 
 much Yorkshire blood produces an excess of fat. (For 
 the curing of such degenerate animals there is a separate 
 co-operative bacon factory at Copenhagen, the bacon of 
 which does not go to England.) Accordingly every new 
 generation is crossbred afresh. To make sure of quality, 
 which alone can command a market, apart from periodical 
 surprise examinations — as a rule four times a year — 
 
152 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Danish co-operators introduced the principle, new at that 
 time to Denmark, of payment according to quahty. That, 
 coupled with the uniformity of breed established, the 
 discipline practicable with regard to members, and federa- 
 tion to one union — ^which centralises business and focusses 
 orders and information — has to a certain extent beaten the 
 private factories (which at the outset, with their superior 
 capital, constituted a very formidable hindrance) out of 
 the field and certainly placed co-operative factories at a 
 distinct advantage. This accounts for the fact that at 
 the present time, out of fifty odd bacon factories existing 
 in Denmark, as many as thirty-eight, disposing of 64 per 
 cent, of pigs brought to the slaughter houses, are co- 
 operative. 
 
 Very correctly does Dr. Hollmann point out that 
 uniformity and quality are bound to have such effect, 
 more particularly in a rather fastidious market like the 
 EngUsh. '•■ A large quantity of goods of a known and 
 determinable quality," so he says, " supplied with steadi- 
 ness, is at all times sure to triumph over a medley of 
 heterogeneous products offered for sale by an unorganised 
 host of sellers. Whoever can succeed in establishing 
 uniformity and quality is bound to remain master. His 
 name will by itself sell his goods, because the pubhc accepts ■ 
 that name as a guarantee oi quality such as it knows." 
 These are very sound principles which cannot be too 
 strongly impressed upon co-operators. 
 
 Co-operative bacon curing has proved a very godsend 
 to Denmark and to its Agriculture. Whereas in the 
 period 1879-1882 only 2,800,000 kilos of bacon were 
 exported, the figure for the quadrennium 1906-1909 was 
 94,300,000 kUos ; and bacon has, together wit"h butter, 
 become one of the main articles of Danish exportation. 
 Concurrently thai number of live pigs exported has gone 
 down from 235,10.0 to 225. Of course the number of pigs 
 
DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK. 155 
 
 kept in the country has increased enormously, namely, 
 from 527,400 in 1881 to 1,466,800 in 1908. In 1909 co- 
 operative pig fatteners were paid by the factories 92,000,000 
 crowns (;f5,098,333), for their pigs, 1,362,500 in number, 
 that is, at the rate of about £3 per animal, in addition to 
 which 25,700 cattle were killed for exportation. 
 
 One would say that here certainly is an example 
 that we — being the consumers of that bacon, which at 
 present the Danes, from no philanthropic motive produce 
 for us, .and having therefore the lesson of their success 
 brought impressively before our eyes — would not be slow 
 to foUow. We have got the market, we have got the 
 pigs, and we have everything that goes towards making 
 efficient factories — except organisation. Given adequate 
 expert management, touch among members and a suffi- 
 cient, and sufficiently steady, supply of pigs to keep the 
 factory fuUy employed, there appears to be no more 
 promising opening for enterprise in that Agriculture of 
 ours, the supposed bankruptcy of which forms the subject 
 of our pet complaints. Our importation of foreign bacon 
 is considerable. Of course there are timid people who 
 see phantom Uons in the way at every turn. Something 
 like fifteen years ago there was a project on foot for starting 
 a co-operative bacon factory in the East Riding. Con- 
 sulted by me, a leading dealer in bacon in London em- 
 phatically disad vised me. There was no money in it. 
 Pork \vas then fully as dear as bacon — ^but of course pork 
 would not keep as bacon would. And there was such 
 marked difference in the tastes of different markets that, 
 unless we knew positively which particular market we 
 were about to cure for, we should find ourselves producing 
 \\-hat nobody wanted. That sounds exceedingly plausible. 
 However, Roscrea — our only co-operative bacon factory 
 at present at work — a typical small farmers' factory, with 
 about 2,800 members, was established in 1908, and by 
 
154 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 dint of turning out good bacon, with a characteristic 
 flavour, it has secured a market at once, which it might 
 readily have extended, had it been financially equal to 
 larger production. Practically the same thing happened 
 when the Co-operative Wholesale Society took up bacon 
 curing on its own accouijt — ^at Tralee, in Ireland, and at 
 Heming, in Denmark. Members of some local societies 
 turned up their noses at the new article. They were used 
 to their old Wiltshire brand. In one small local store, to 
 state a concrete instance, the sale went down from thirteen 
 sides a week to three. But it has aU come right after 
 very little time. Aftfr aU, good bacon is good bacon, and 
 the human palate is adaptable. "Wherever sufficient 
 support with raw material can be made sure of," so we may 
 judge with Mr. Loudon M. Douglas (Lecturer on the Meat 
 Industry, Edinburgh and East of Scotland College of 
 Agriculture), that " with a sufficient capital success may 
 be assured, as by modem methods it is possible to realise 
 high prices for home-cured bacon, and at the same time 
 to utilise all the by-products which arise in such a factory." 
 
 There are in our case no special hindrances in the way. 
 There is no occasion here to go into technical details of 
 co-operative, bacon curing, which are precisely the same 
 as in non-co-operative. There are other books to give, 
 as it happens, very full information upon this point. But 
 what is done at Roscrea and at Tralee may be done else- 
 where. 
 
 Co-operative organisation ought by this time to come 
 as " natural " to us as it did to the Danes in 1888. There 
 must be expert management. But for such management 
 a degree of skill wiU be sufficient such as may without 
 great difficulty be procured. As societies multiply, federa- 
 tion will come in and be equal to more perfected know- 
 ledge. On the lower grade such superior skill may be 
 useful, but it is not indispensable. A manager will 
 
DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK. 155 
 
 however, have to be conversant with all the rules of curing, 
 keeping and marketing, and be able to distinguish a sound 
 pig from a diseased one, also to recommend the best breeds. 
 To insure an adequate and steady supply of pigs 
 there must necessarily be a sufficiently large constituency 
 and an obUgation laid upon members to deliver all sound 
 pigs that they rear and do not require for their own use, 
 so as to keep the factory steadily employed. We are not 
 likely to want to compete in volume of business with 
 private factories either in this country, where frequently 
 2,000 pigs are killed in a week, or, much less, with those 
 monster slaughter houses in the United States, where five 
 or six thousand animals are sometimes dispatched in a 
 day. Roscrea can manage 750 pigs a week. A similar 
 capacity will probably suit most cases likely to arise. 
 In Denmark only two factories kill more than 100,000 
 pigs a year ; there are ten which kill only between 10,000 
 and 20,000. Of course the larger the factory the greater 
 will be the possible economy — but also the greater the 
 risk in case of irregular supply. The size of the factory 
 is to a large extent a question of the presence of funds, 
 but also of the suitableness of the district. Under the 
 latter heading we shall have to consider the facilities 
 prevailing for procuring skim milk.' Bacon factories have 
 thriven so well in Denmark, and multiphed so fast, because 
 there were co-operative dairies there before them, to 
 provide the separated milk for the maturing pigs, for 
 which such milk is the best fattening food. We are not 
 yet so happily situated in this country. But one may 
 hope that the time is not far distant when we too shall 
 have the milk pail well within reach of the stye. The 
 demand upon members' purses need not be excessive. 
 For experience has taught us that costly buildings with 
 substantial walls are not necessary. Concrete and cor- 
 rugated iron will fully answer the purpose. And with 
 
156 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 proper and compact arrangement — ^which must be a prime 
 consideration, to economise labour and expedite work — 
 all that is needed may be crowded into very limited space. 
 But, unlike the Danes, we shall probably have to provide 
 at any rate a fair proportion of the money required for 
 ourselves. Roscrea was started with an authorised capital 
 of ^15,000, of which not quite ;fi2,ooo was subscribed. 
 Out of that sum something like £7,000 went into the 
 buildings. That left, as was found, rather too little for 
 working capital. However, that was a matter of only 
 a couple of thousands or so. 
 
 Compulsory delivery by members it will scarcely be 
 possible to do without. But we may, in case of need, 
 supplement members' delivery by purchase from out- 
 siders, which indeed in not a few factories in Germany is 
 forbidden, to prevent members making a business of 
 supply. But in Denmark seven co-operative factories 
 make a practice of buying pigs in addition to those delivered 
 by members. Such .practice should, if possible, be used 
 as a means of increasing membership by attracting those 
 who, as mere sellers of pigs, cannot be allowed to share 
 in the fuU benefits derivable. 
 
 Provision should, if possible, be made for payment 
 of the major portion of the value of the pigs on dehvery, 
 because small people want the money, and cash paijmient 
 is the bait by which dealers succeed best in luring away 
 members from their society — even though the rebate 
 deducted be heavy. Once we have co-operative banks of 
 sufficient financial power there ought to be no difficulty 
 about this. But even without them there ought to be 
 means of raising the requisite cash. 
 
 If the bacon turned out be good, it may be held that 
 a market will be found, even without counting upon 
 purchases by our Stores, which are at all times willing to 
 buy a good article at a reasonable price from a co-operative 
 
DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK. 157 
 
 source. The further the movement extends^ the more 
 closely its units unite, to form a strong central organisation,, 
 the better -assured will a good sale be. 
 
 The organisation of the sale of live animals presents 
 more serious difficulties, because the article to be disposed 
 of is a far more delicate one to handle, liable to a variety 
 of accidents and of damage, not altogether easy to move, 
 and of less readily determinable value. However, to- 
 Agriculture as a general interest it may be taken to be of 
 even greater importance than bacon curing. For a. 
 co-operative bacon factory is not practicable in every 
 locality and there is plenty more live stock to be disposed 
 of besides pigs. 
 
 Although we have not in this country yet operated 
 ia anything like the same extensive and carefuUy 
 methodised way as our neighbours, more specificaUy in 
 Germany, we have, on the other hand, unquestionably in 
 the province referred to some very fair successes to show, 
 which go far to prove, not only that Co-operation of this 
 sort is feasible among us, but also that we have akeady 
 taken up the matter on the right lines. With regard to 
 this business our position is distinctly different from that 
 of the Germans. Our various local markets for live stock 
 differ less among themselves than do those of Germany 
 — say of Eastern Prussia, on the one hand, and of the 
 metropoUtan area or the manufacturing West, on the 
 other. We have not, and — as the Departmental Com- 
 mittee already referred to has reported^-we are in no 
 danger of having, the rule of " rings " or " trusts," which 
 forms the standing crux of German marketing. The 
 standing complaint in Germany is that the markets are 
 absolutely governed by small groups of " kommissionars," 
 wielding enormous influence by reason of their huge capitals 
 and their acting in unison among themselves, reducing 
 everybody else in the trade to subjection. Our markets 
 
158 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 are freer. They are more uniform. There is not that 
 variety of breeds and, more serious than breeds, of 
 regimen of rearing and feeding cattle brought to the 
 market ; and there is not anything like the same variety 
 ■of differing tastes, which requires markets lying close 
 together, seemingly in precisely similar conditions, such 
 as Essen and Cologne, Mayence and Frankfort, to be 
 quite differently catered for. And we are broken in to 
 simple methods of business, which suit our case better than 
 the rather elaborate arrangements which appear to be 
 necessary in Germany. We do not need those arrange- 
 ments ; but they are all the same worth studying, because 
 they indicate tendencies which are likely to assert them- 
 selves and to be essentially the same everywhere, although 
 they may not everywhere be equally pronounced, and 
 which want to be guarded against. 
 
 The object of the co-operative organisation of the sale 
 ■of live stock is not, of course, to enable a farmer to get 
 rid, as a quite occasional occurrence, of a beast here 
 and there. It is to provide a regular, permanent and 
 trustworthy market for farm stock, under favourable 
 conditions, independently of the intermediaries' trade. 
 There is to be material benefit, there is to be certainty of 
 sale, and there is to be full independence. The ideal 
 satisfaction of such requirement is on the lines of that 
 which our Winchester Co-operative Auction Market and 
 Southern Counties Agricultural and Horsham and District 
 Agricultural Societies provide in their independent markets 
 and periodical sales. The German federated live stock 
 sale societies, and more particularly the Central Sale 
 Society of Berlin, accomplish the same thing on a much 
 larger scale but practically on the same lines — apart from 
 the great Lean Stock Market already mentioned — in their 
 various Geschdftsstellen (sale offices) organised in all the 
 principal live stock markets, which secure to their mem- 
 
. DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK. 159 
 
 "bers a recognised locus standi in each particular market, 
 while permitting them to benefit by the concourse of 
 promiscuous buyers which such market gathers together. 
 Such Geschdftsstellen are found exceedingly useful ; and 
 the further the network which they already compose is 
 extended, the more secure must become the hold which 
 Agricultural Co-operation acquires over the German meat 
 market. Their officers may not be able to act directly 
 as salesmen or brokers. These markets have their own 
 rules. Members sending may have, as before, to employ 
 a " kommissionar " or agent for that particular business. 
 But the Geschiiftsstellen watch vigilantly and understand- 
 ingly over that agent. They collect and telegraphically 
 forward information, so that at headquarters, and indeed 
 at every station occupied by the society, the condition 
 and prospects of all particular markets become fully 
 known. They assist members with advice as to the choice 
 of a market and of the most favourable time for selling. 
 And they look after the animals and see that nothing is 
 omitted which may contribute to their health and safety. 
 There could be no better means of assisting the farmer 
 wishful to sell Uve stock. 
 
 However, independent markets or sale offices are not 
 ever5Avhere practicable. And the Eastern Counties Far- 
 mers' Co-operative Association must be judged to have 
 acted perfectly right in organising their own, by this time 
 very substantial trade in live stock, rather on " agency " 
 lines, affording members expert advice and skilled service, 
 without binding themselves to any particular market. 
 
 These are, in fact, the two principles on which we now 
 proceed in this country. And in respect of either we have 
 already very encouraging results to show, such as maj' be 
 held likely to stimulate farmers elsewhere to imitation. 
 The sahent feature in the help given by the Eastern 
 ■Counties Farmers' Co-operative Association is the skilled 
 
i6o CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 service, in the Winchester and Winchcombe system the- 
 advantages of centraUsation. According to the principle 
 practised has been the area occupied for transactions. 
 A small local society may very well assist a member to 
 get rid of an occasional beast or two to better advantage 
 than by sale to a dealer. And acting as a unit in a federa- 
 tion it may contribute according to its powers to the trade 
 of the latter and correspondingly share in its benefits. 
 But for acting by itself a small society is in this matter 
 a mistake. It could not ensure a sufficient supply ; it 
 could not assert itself in the market. There have been 
 small societies formed in Germany, and they have all had 
 to be wound up. On the other hand, a great national 
 society, like that at Berlin, acting for the whole of Ger- 
 many, cannot from headquarters give trustworthy advice, 
 because the things that it has to deal with are too far 
 distant from it and beyond its direct ken. It is in a 
 position to know how business is going in this market or 
 that, where there is hkely to be excess of supply or excess 
 of demand — ^rather an important matter in Germany,, 
 where there are " cattle banks " formed, ostensibly to 
 assist sellers, but which often enough dehberately over- 
 crowd markets in order to depress prices in the buyers' 
 interest. But they do not know enough about the beeists 
 to be offered, nor, in consequence, about the nearest proper 
 market. Wherever the matter is well organised, through 
 local societies and centres, for districts not excessively 
 large, the trade may become so far perfected that, as 
 happens ■ occasionally in Hanover, beasts may be bought 
 unseen — ^from known parties, and subject, of course, to 
 weighing and examination. But in such organisations, to- 
 make sure of an adequate supply, the old rule of com- 
 pulsory sale is enforced — at any rate with respect to pigs.. 
 Societies which have tried to do without the safeguard of 
 compulsion have found their supply dwindling, owing to- 
 
DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK. i6i 
 
 ■dealers' successful artifices, and have eventually had to 
 Avind up. Markets like those of Southampton and of 
 Winchester, and periodical sales like those at Alresford, 
 Overton and Horsham, create their own extendible districts. 
 The Eastern Counties Farmers' Association— whose sales 
 -amounted in 1910 to £118,105, apart from a regular supply 
 ■of live stock, under a permanent arrangement, to the 
 Leicester Distributive Society — covers an area which may 
 be fully trusted to supply a sufficient number of beasts. 
 The service which it renders to members consists in the 
 placing of expert assistance (which only Co-operation can 
 provide for the single farmer, whose business by itself 
 would not warrant the expense) at their disposal, in the 
 first place for advice as to the most suitable market, and 
 next, for assisting them with skilled knowledge of the 
 trade in the sale. 
 
 German societies go a good deal further. Their area 
 is as a rule more restricted than that of the Eastern Counties 
 Association, which covers portions of three counties. 
 Their ideal area is something corresponding to a petty 
 •sessional division. But then they are federated among 
 themselves and have central societies above them, so that 
 there is a perfect network of stations and a well organised 
 system. That enables the various societies — ^more par- 
 ticularly where there are " sale offices " — ^to keep one 
 another informed and to come to one another's assistance. 
 The Central Society at Berlin, which now numbers about 
 2,200 members (more than 150 being societies), has a well 
 regulated service of information extending all over the 
 Empire. Its acknowledged aim is to become the recog- 
 nised central organ for the entire co-operative live stock 
 trade — ^with a view, of course, since Agrarianism continues 
 in the ascendant, of influencing prices generally. This it 
 affirms it will be able to do as soon as at any rate 
 one-third of the entire live stock trade becomes focussed 
 
i62 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 "in its hands. Meanwhile it centrahses the bulk of what 
 co-operative business there is. Apart from its business 
 in its own Lean Stock Market, in which in igio 59,570- 
 head of full-grown cattle, 11,212 calves, 173,651 pigs,. 
 2,010,300 geese, and 141,239 other poultry were disposed 
 of, its annual sales amount to over a million sterling. Its 
 services in the Berlin Fat Stock Market are truly invaluable. 
 For it has an officer stationed there who, besides being a 
 well skilled expert, is acquainted with every buyer or 
 butcher coming to the market, and knows his peculiar line 
 of business well. In consequence he is admirably qualified 
 to refer farmers in respect of every beast offered at once 
 to the most promising quarter. As regards local societies,, 
 each such society has its own expert selected by itself, 
 who is now precluded by rule from doing business for any 
 one else — as well as the necessary attendants. Well con- 
 sidered arrangements are made to practise economy in the 
 forwarding of beasts to market by employing reserved 
 trucks, which are always carefully filled up. To ensure 
 a place in such, the intending vendor is accordingly re- 
 quired to give five or six days' notice. Since the expert 
 is pretty well acquainte3 with the state of affairs in his 
 own district, he is in a position, should there be too many 
 beasts for the truck or trucks, to delay the dispatch of the 
 overplus by timely message to its owner until the next week, 
 or, in case of insufficiency^ to hurry up a few more beasts 
 that are known to be practically ready. One part of the 
 advice that the expert is called upon to give is to tell 
 farmers when they ought to sell, so as not to lose money 
 by offering underfattened animals, nor to waste keep by 
 overfattening them. However the truck must be filled 
 up, if possible. Under circumstances non-members' 
 animals are allowed in the same truck, but not at quite 
 the same reduction of cost. The animals sold consist 
 (as in our Eastern Counties) for the most part of pigs,. 
 
DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK. i6y 
 
 with calves — ^veal being a common meat food in Germany 
 where it is killed earlier and is therefore more digestible 
 than in this country — ^bringing up a good second, more 
 particularly in such regions as Pomerania, where a distinct 
 feature is made of fattening calves. The binding obliga- 
 tion to sell all animals available for sale already referred 
 to — apart from an exemption generally permitted in respect 
 of neat stock, and a year of grace frequently accorded 
 to newly joining members (of whom it is assumed that they 
 may possibly have standing contracts with dealers not to 
 be at once broken off) — Cleaves two loopholes : in favour of 
 unsound animals, which are, of course, summarily rejected ; 
 and in favour also of animals to be disposed of, under the 
 observance of necessary safeguards, to some local butcher 
 for local sale. 
 
 That suggests a new subject for consideration. At 
 the outset of the movement German farmers showed them- 
 selves exceedingly ambitious and enterprising. Out of 
 temper as they were with the entire condition of the 
 market, they would make a clean sweep of aU intermedia- 
 ries, down to the hapless butcher who, like themselves, 
 was more sinned against than sinning, having been brought 
 under capitalist thraldom. Accordingly they boldly set 
 up slaughter houses for themselves — ^which failed igno- 
 miniously, as indeed they were bound to do for reasons 
 aheady stated. The late Oeconomierath Rehfeld, speaking 
 as an " Agrarian," lays the blame for such miscarriage — 
 which unhappy result no one attempts to call in question 
 — ^upon what he supposes to be the unreasoning, spiteful 
 hatred of urban populations of " Agrarians," who had 
 carried the prohibition of the importation of meat or live 
 stock in ParUament. But the results have been precisely 
 the same wherever butchering by producers has been 
 attempted. Thus, the experiment made, under the most 
 favourable conditions conceivable, by the Vienna Vieh- 
 
■^ 1 
 
 164 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 marktkasse, organised under municipal authority, proved 
 -a dead failure. Wherever favourable results have been 
 reported such have proved to be purely ephemeral and to 
 have applied to only a very small number of beasts. It 
 was bound to be so. For farmers are in this matter 
 producers, in a position which may be compared to that of 
 manufacturers in industry. Their busiaess is to supply 
 the material and place it on the market. Retail trade lies 
 altogether outside their province and is beyond their 
 ■capacity. And butchers' business, of all others, does not 
 and cannot lend itself to wholesale practise. You may 
 kill wholesale, and sell to the retailers wholesale ; you 
 cannot come into touch with the ultimate consumer 
 otherwise than by retail deahng. The Danish bacon 
 curers never fell into the mistake of attempting butchering. 
 They never sell less than a side of bacon, and leave all 
 retail trade to the butchers, who are accordingly their 
 friends. There is some farmers' butchering going on in 
 Sweden. But even there, as in Denmark — ^where bullocks 
 and calves are slaughtered as well as pigs, though in much 
 smaller number — the main part of the slaughtering busi- 
 ness practised is that for exportation. The Germans learnt 
 a lesson from painful but wholesome experience, and in 
 consequence abandoned butchering, which had the effect 
 of bringing the local butchers into Hne with them once 
 more and converting them into friends and allies. Indeed, 
 there are also some small dealers already who have attached 
 themselves to the side of the co-operating farmers. Of 
 course dealers are very welcome to buy ; but their pur- 
 chases have as a rule to be made from the society, or in 
 the open market. Local butchers are permitted to buy 
 straight from local producers, but only after binding 
 themselves in heavy penalties not to pass on the animal 
 purchased to anyone else, just as members are made 
 liable to heavy fines should they sell otherwise than to 
 -their society. 
 
DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK 165 
 
 Sales are under the German system effected in three 
 different ways, which are now narrowing down to two. 
 The most reasonable, and also the most " co-operative," 
 is that of mere " agency," as the Eastern Counties Farmers 
 term it, the society forwarding the animal to the market, 
 at the owner's risk and expense — ^both being kept at a 
 minimum by Co-operation and care — and debiting him 
 with the outgoings and a commission. In Western 
 Germany, where people have become famiharised with 
 business methods, that is the largely predominating 
 practice. '' Members simply send us their beasts to do 
 the best with that we can." So one of the directors of 
 the Central Sale Society {Viehzentrale) at Berlin has 
 explained. And that method is always kept open to 
 members to fall back upon, should the others not meet 
 with their approval. ' 
 
 However, in the less developed East, more particularly 
 at the outset, farmers winced at this novel method of 
 selUng. They had been accustomed to sell for cash and 
 have done with it. Of course, in virtue of established 
 financial facilities, a sale society may welljnake an advance 
 on the security of the animal taken for sale. But that 
 was not enough for our Borussians. They would have 
 the beast sold out and out, for a price to be agreed upon. 
 That has been done, and seemingly without evil results ; 
 but it is not really good practice. There is risk in it, 
 such as a co-operative society has no business to incur. 
 Also it can scarcely be held to be to the selling member's 
 advantage. For to him the society becomes as a dealer, 
 with interests of its own, and contingencies to be guarded 
 against, which is just what ought not to be. The society 
 cannot under such circumstances afford to give the member 
 the full price for his beast ; there are risks to be taken 
 into accoimt and it must make sure of being on the 
 safe side. It cannot tax its other members in favour of 
 
 M 
 
i66 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 one. There are bad markets, and there may be accidents. 
 And nobody can expect the vendor's neighbours to take 
 the risk of these. 
 
 Accordingly this antiquated method has now gener- 
 ally given place to a new one, which is something between 
 a sale and agency. Rebates upon the latest Berlin prices 
 are fixed for every local centre, allowing for carriage 
 and outgoings, all of which may be calculated beforehand. 
 The proportion to be deducted is posted up at the local 
 office, in order that members — ^referring to the latest quoted 
 price of Berlin or some other leading market, whichever 
 may be selected — ^may know exactly how much less they 
 will receive. But that is not all. The Berlin prices are 
 quoted for beasts of various qualities. The animals offered 
 for sale have accordingly to be placed in their several 
 categories. This is the local agent's business. But should 
 his valuation not give satisfaction, the owner — who is 
 expected to be on the spot to see his animal into the truck,, 
 if it be of the bovine species — ^has a right to appeal to a 
 deputation from the Committee, which is Ukewise required 
 to be present. -The authority entrusted with this office,, 
 when the intervening society is the Viehzentrale, are 
 " men of confidence " selected for their expert knowledge. 
 Should the judgment in appeal still fail to give satisfaction,^ 
 the member remains free to send his animal to market on 
 his own account and at his own risk for simple " agency " 
 sale. Otherwise under this method the risk of transport 
 falls upon the society. 
 
 There is one more point which calls for mention. 
 Be the experts as careful as they will, there are bound to 
 be " good markets " and " bad markets," and animals 
 of precisely the same value may accordingly fetch more 
 or less money one week than another. For any one who 
 sends to market frequently that is not hkely to make a 
 great difference, since good markets and bad may be 
 
DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK. 167 
 
 counted upon to balance one another in the long run. 
 But to the man who sells only his one or two pigs, or his 
 one buUock, a bad market must come as a hardship. And 
 Co-operation was intended to bar out such risks as far as 
 possible. To equalise such chances it is not uncommon 
 for societies to fix the final price to be credited to the 
 selling member on the principle on which the Treasury- 
 assesses income tax, according to the mean of three suc- 
 cessive markets, supposing that the difference in price 
 amounts to at least one pfennig (Jd.) per German pound. 
 
 By such various means a very substantial business 
 has been built up in Germany, for the decided benefit of 
 farmers — and in truth for the benefit not solely of those 
 who avail themselves of the co-operative methods. For 
 market quotations have generally gone up and become 
 more honest. The mere effect of marshalling supply so- 
 as to avoid glut on the one hand and deficiency on the 
 other has been noteworthy. Two very striking instances 
 of this may be worth quoting from the practice of the 
 Viehzentrale. 
 
 In 1902 the butchers and dealers protested that they 
 could not, with the frontier closed, answer for a sufficient 
 supply of meat for the great concourse of people expected 
 to be attracted to Posen by the great Autumn Manoeuvres 
 to be attended by the Emperor. Such supply they 
 declared to be " impossible." It was the farmers' " game " 
 — ^being Agrarians — ^to show that it was nothing of the sort ; 
 for they wanted the frontiers to remain closed and a 
 monopoly secured to homegrown meat. So the Vieh- 
 zentrale offered to provide the necessary live stock. Its. 
 offer was accepted. However, it had not carried more 
 than one or two trainloads of pigs to the province before 
 the dealers came to the conclusion that it was after all 
 perfectly " possible " to provide the meat required. Once 
 more in 1905, there threatened to be a meat famine in 
 
i68 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Silesia. There were no pigs to be had for love or money, 
 and the Government was on the very point of consenting 
 to a suspension of the interdict upon importation. Once 
 more the Viehzenirale stepped into the breach, and by 
 skilful arrangement managed to bring German pigs to the 
 threatened province in ample numbers. Whatever be 
 thought of the policy of such manoeuvres, the efficacy cf 
 efficient marshalling muse certainly be counted a point 
 in the score for Co-operation. 
 
 But there is more than this. Dealers have to some 
 extent been put upon their good behaviour. " Rings" 
 have been in some measure broken up. And knowledge 
 of the live stock trade has been disseminated. Farmers 
 now know much better than they did what their stock is 
 worth — and get the proper price. There are markets already 
 in which Co-operation is king. The principal of these is 
 of course the Lean Stock Market at Friedrichsfelde, near 
 Berlin, already alluded to, which is, indeed, open to all 
 indiscriminately, sellers as well as buyers, and is largely 
 frequented by outsiders of both orders, but which is imder 
 co-operative management, and is. therefore exempt from 
 " ring " rule, and fair to all. 
 
 Om- own achievements have been on a far more 
 modest scale.. But they appear to be on the right lines 
 and keep growing from year to year. The Eastern Coun- 
 ties Farmers' Co-operative Association, as already observed, 
 disposes annually of live stock to the value of over £100,000 
 by agency. Its trade is for the present almost exclusively 
 in pigs ; but regular trade in other stock is contem- 
 plated. In addition, by standing arrangement with the 
 Leicester Distributive Society, it sends a truckload of 
 about thirty pigs to Leicester every week for consumption 
 by that society. The Southern Counties Agricultural 
 Trading Society at its weekly markets in Southampton 
 sells annually something hke £40,000 worth of animals. 
 
DISPOSAL OF LIVE STOCK. 169 
 
 Most of the principal buyers of the district now come to 
 its markets. In addition it organises sales at the Alresford 
 and Overton Fairs and sales of store stock at the Spring 
 and Autumn Fairs at Winchester. The Winchcombe 
 Society in 1910 held fifteen sales, at which it disposed of 
 6,325 head of cattle. For 1909 the figures were : 969 
 cattle, 3,616 sheep, 1,601 pigs, and 258 calves. Similar 
 sales are coming into vogue elsewhere. In addition the 
 Co-operative Wholesale Society of Manchester has entered 
 upon an experiment, the progress of which it will be 
 interesting to watch, namely, of buying a considerable 
 number of live stock intended for killing, by preference 
 from agricultural co-operative societies, for resale to 
 affiliated distributive societies in the North-East of Eng- 
 land, which is part of its most active district. That really 
 is an inversion of the order of business which we have 
 thus far been contemplating. For it is the stepping in 
 of Co-operative Distribution as a middle link between the 
 organised consumer and the organised or else unorganised 
 producer. The value of the process, should it succeed, 
 would be this, that here is a wholesale buyer with prac- 
 tically unlimited means and an assured market for sale, 
 bringing his market up close to the producer. Of course 
 he ought to gain by economy in transit, as buying straight 
 from the farm. One main prospect of success, however, 
 is likely to lie in the development and extension of the 
 organisation of producers who, acting in their several 
 districts, may count upon being able to secure for them- 
 selves markets best suited to the goods which they have 
 to offer, open to all the world, but in which they may 
 make sure of fully fair treatment. 
 
170 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 IX.— DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 
 
 Agricultural soil and the live stock which finds its 
 nourishment upon such, bring forth more produce besides 
 meat and grain, eggs and milk. And as small holdings 
 extend we may expect to see Mother Earth jrield a still 
 greater variety of her gifts. For small holdings require 
 varied cultivation. Meanwhile there are the orchard and 
 the market garden, the flax field and the hop plantation, 
 even the riverside and the peatmoss. If we will only take 
 the trouble to look abroad, we shall find what is to our- 
 selves almost a bewildering diversity of productive or 
 improving uses, to which all-fruitful Co-operation has been 
 put with distinct advantage. All these uses are not indeed 
 of a nature to appeal directly to ourselves as models for 
 imitation. In this northern country we grow no vines, 
 nor have we olive yards, or lemon groves or southern 
 flowerbeds, nor do we distil our roots into spirit for the 
 sake of nourishing refuse left, nor, lastly, do we manu- 
 facture our cabbages into choucro/de or sauerkraut, as 
 agricultural co-operators do to good purpose in France 
 and in Germany. However, if these particular things are 
 ■strangers to us, we have other native stems upon which 
 to graft Co-operation as a marketing or improving practice. 
 To single out only one instance — there is no country 
 which excels England in respect of hardy fruit. There 
 are no apples like ours, no strawberries, nor plums to beat 
 those of Evesham. And, jeer as political opponents 
 might at the time at Mr. Gladstone's wise and timely 
 counsel given to English farmers to " grow fruit and make 
 jam," aftertime has amply justified that great statesman's 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 171 
 
 advice and to some extent demonstrated that, to parody 
 one of the German Emperor's favourite sayings : " The 
 future of our agricultiure hes in the orchard." It must 
 have done Mr. Gladstone's shade good — if there is such 
 a thing — to hear last session a member of the whilom 
 carping party ask the Government reproachfully when 
 the promised fruit-growing department would at length 
 be established in the Board of Agriculture ? (This has 
 meanwhile been done and promises well.) And how 
 it must have warmed his heart to learn from the Report 
 of the Committee on Fruit Industry (of 1905) — " The 
 fruit industry appears to be a most progressive industry ; 
 in fact, it is the only form of agriculture which has ex- 
 hibited any sign of progress in recent years." The breadth 
 of land under every other crop, so the Committee show 
 in detail, has considerably diminished — that under wheat 
 by as much as the difference between 2,564,237 acres in 
 1888 and 1,375,284 acres in 1904. But the acreage under 
 orchards has increased from 148,221 acres in 1873 — a 
 little before Mr. Gladstone tendered his advice — to 243,008 
 acres in 1904 ; and land under small fruit from 69,792 
 acres in 1897 to 77,942 acres in 1904. That leaves veget- 
 ables, and garden produce generally, wholly unaccounted 
 for. 
 
 The orchard and the garden coming into play stamp 
 the Co-operation here to be spoken of more specifically — 
 though by no means exclusively — as a practice for the 
 small holder, who cannot — as old world sceptics have quite 
 rightly urged — look to butcher's meat and wheat to keep 
 his chimney smoking sufficiently, but will want to set 
 his hand to something with more pains in it, it is true, 
 more personal attention and minute care, hand labour and 
 nursing single plants, but also with more money in it. 
 To a man of this class, though he cannot, for chmatic 
 causes, tread in the very footsteps of his foreign exemplars 
 
172 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 to be quoted — the co-operative capers growers of Cuges 
 and Rocquevaire, the immortelles growers of Trets, the 
 perfume distillers of the Cote d'Azur — their practice will 
 all the same appeal, as showing what Co-operation will 
 accomplish. The hand that picks an orange may pick 
 an apple, and the hoe that crumbles up the soil for rice 
 or capers can loosen it also for beans and peas. 
 
 In its application to one or two of the " coming " 
 crops, upon which our agricultural reformers' hearts are 
 set. Co-operation has already been abroad put to a trying 
 test — with varying results. By such example at any rate 
 we may hope to profit. 
 
 One such crop is sugar beet, grown for making sugar. 
 (For there is sugar beet also grown for fodder.) There is 
 no occasion here to call into question whether our soil will 
 or will not grow good crops of sugar beet sufficiently rich 
 in saccharine matter to warrant its extraction. Experi- 
 ence has proved that it can. In the opinion of not a few 
 practical farmers experience has also proved that all the 
 same we can in our moist cHmate turn our land to more 
 profitable account by raising upon it disproportionately 
 heavier crops of mangels. Be that as it may, co-operative 
 sugar beet growing and beetroot sugar making have not 
 abroad proved unqilalified successes, albeit at first blush 
 they appear altogether " cut out " for co-operative prac- 
 tice, for the reason already insisted upon, namely, that 
 a substantial stake in cash and enterprise shading off into 
 speculation play too prominent parts in the industry. 
 Co-operation of a sort there must be, no doubt, or there 
 would be no raw material. The support with such from 
 surrounding farms must be made sure of. It is so abroad, 
 down to the very " cow peasant " {Khhhauer) — the peasant, 
 that is, who scratches his fertile fields with a plough drawn 
 by his two milchcows, which constitute his only cattle. 
 And these men are allowed something of a say in the 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 
 
 175 
 
 management of the works. However, generally speaking, 
 as in Lord BjTTon's verse, it is " cash " which " rules the 
 grove — and fells it too, besides, &c." Germany possesses 
 some few beetroot sugar factories registered under the 
 Co-operative Act. But so httle are they held to be of a 
 piece with other co-operative societies, that even the 
 all-receptive " Imperial Union " has not received them 
 into its fold. In France, the eight or so co-operative sugar 
 factories existing are understood not to be distinguishing 
 themselves by overgreat success. And the same thing 
 may be said of those in existence in Austria and in the 
 Netherlands. The sugar beet growers' societies in Belgium,, 
 which have met \vith a certain amount of success, are not 
 productive co-operative societies but, in the Itahan phrase, 
 " leagues of resistance," having combined to resist being 
 cut down to unfair prices by manufacturers. They have- 
 been successful in carrying payments for roots according 
 to quality — that is, yield in sugar — in the place of pay- 
 ment by weight. France rejoices in a climate and a soil 
 which seem marked out for the cultivation of sugar beet, 
 with skill and practice in hand husbandry to support 
 them. And large breadths of that crop are grown accord- 
 ingly. However, co-operators find that they do better 
 by distiUing the roots into spirit — which is, as extracted 
 from sugar beet, one of the purest varieties of spirit put 
 upon the market, fit for use in the manufacture of fine 
 perfumery. And that, again, has put co-operating vine 
 growers in the South upon the qui viv'e. To compete with 
 the northern beetroot distillers they distil their " Aramon "^ 
 into eau-de-vie, which answers well. 
 
 During the latest wine " slump " distilling has struck 
 out a new path, to the distinct rehef of grape growers, 
 and it is Co-operation which has pointed the way. During 
 good times, elsewhere than in Burgundy and one or two 
 other advanced districts, growers were content to leave 
 
174 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 the refuse husks — bulking to the extent of about 12 to 
 15 kilogrammes to the hectohtre — and the lees produced 
 in wine pressing wholly out of account as so much waste 
 to be thrown away — just as we did oxtails till French 
 prisoners during the " Great War " taught us how to 
 make savoury soup out of them. A period of pronounced 
 slump is however not a time for wasting material, half the 
 weight of which, as it happens, is made up of wine. Accord- 
 ingly lees and husks are now carefully preserved and 
 turned into the stiU, where valuable "eau-de-vie-de-marc " 
 is produced out of them to make more money. Apart 
 from the consideration that the utilisation of many little 
 lots of husks necessarily call for Co-operation, Co-operation 
 possesses the twofold advantage of yielding a purer product 
 to the public and at the same time helping producers over 
 the difficulties connected with recent legislation taxing the 
 " bouiUeurs de cru." The number of co-operative dis- 
 tilleries for " marc " — which may in other times be turned 
 to account for other distilUng — has accordingly consider- 
 ably increased. Of the produce obtained " Marc de 
 Bourgogne " is particularly prized. 
 
 German Co-operation does not distil its sugar beet, 
 but it turns itself loose freely upon that specifically German 
 crop potatoes, to convert their starch into spirit, not 
 .altogether, so it must be admitted, of the same superlative 
 degree of purity as beetroot spirit. What the grape is 
 to the Italian, who exclaims despairingly at the sight of 
 his leafy vineyards, that it is all " uva, uva, uva," Drake's 
 western find is to the German. There are potatoes every- 
 where. They suit the climate and the soil. And they 
 provide a root crop such as is wanted to put the soil in 
 heart, to crumble it to a fine tilth and clean it, a crop that 
 will grow anywhere. There is no less than 43,000,000 
 tons of potatoes turned out in an average year. And the 
 population does not always quite know what to do with 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 17s 
 
 that quantity. When fortune smiles there is a glut. 
 Accordingly the still is impressed for rehef— among other 
 institutions — in more than 200 co-operative establish- 
 ments. It converts the raw starch into a more valuable 
 product and leaves something — not a little — to go back 
 to the soil through the beasts. Also starch is made out of 
 potatoes — both in Germany and in France — in France 
 more particularly in the Department of the Vosges, near 
 the German frontier. That hkewise leaves something for 
 the soil. Where these two industries are practised on 
 <;o-operative hues small folk are given an opportunity of 
 profiting with their small quantities by an industrial branch 
 of husbandry which for a long time was as a useful resource 
 reserved altogether for the broad acred farmer. The 
 participation of small men is particularly accentuated in 
 Switzerland, where distilhng — so far as it is permitted at 
 all, under a law which fixes a maximum of production — is 
 a paj^ng business under the Government monopoly. 
 Even with such help the tremendous mass of potatoes 
 produced in Germany is not to be got rid of. Accordingly 
 people have taken to artificially drying potatoes — they 
 also dry sugar beet tops to keep for fodder — as a means 
 of preserving them without loss through rotting, which 
 under other conditions makes very serious inroad, to the 
 extent of a full ten per cent. — 4,300,000 tons in the year. 
 Such drying is practised upon a large and annually increas- 
 ing scale on co-operative lines, so as to admit small holders 
 to the benefit, and it has been found unquestionably 
 successful. Where carried on co-operatively, potato drying 
 is often combined with some other industry, such as 
 dairying. The potatoes are either cut into shces and 
 baked, or else steamed and passed between highl}- heated 
 metal rollers, from which they emerge in a flaky form. 
 Such " flakes " keep remarkably well and are readily eaten 
 by every species of live stock, including horses, and even 
 
1/6 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 poultrv. Horses are said to thrive well upon them. For 
 pigs such potatoes appear, when crushed, to prove ideal 
 fodder, and it has been suggested that they may be made 
 to replace maize. They contain more albumen, so it is- 
 urged, than either rye or oats. Quite lately they have 
 even been given as food to human beings. 
 
 Co-operation then has a great deal to say to the 
 disposal of root crops. 
 
 Another agricultural industry which has of late been 
 much recommended in this country, as promising wealth, 
 and which has been actually taken up with some spirit in. 
 Ireland — and which has also already sought for support 
 in co-operative practice — is the cultivation of tobacco. 
 In the United States there is much co-operative marketing" 
 of tobacco, and also manufacture of tobacco products.. 
 In Europe, rightly enough, Co-operation is more particularly 
 recommended for the stage of preparation of the harvested 
 leaves for the finishing factory. It is in that process that 
 the crux of tobacco growing is found to lie. Large growers- 
 are in a position to make their contracts for considerable- 
 quantities with tobacco firms. Small men used to be left 
 to the mercy of higglers or agents buying up their small 
 lots — in an unfermented state — below value and without 
 making any difference for better or worse quality. Co- 
 operation has changed all that. It has made Jack as good, 
 as his master. And it has done more. It has taught 
 growers to improve and standardise their tobacco and to- 
 cultivate on improved lines. This may well be seen in the 
 Grandduchy of Baden — which grows about 45 per cent, 
 of the tobacco raised in Germany altogether — and in the 
 Rhenish Palatinate, into which tobacco growing was first 
 introduced in Germany, by settlers coming from the 
 Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Co-operative- 
 societies in those parts have greatly increased the value of 
 their members' crops, at the cost of exercising stern. 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 177 
 
 discipline, the result of which is that they are now com- 
 posed of the pick of the growers. These men now grow 
 in the main all of them the same variety of tobacco, at any 
 rate in their particular parish — the society supplying the 
 seed — in the same way. By such means uniformity is 
 effectively ensured. The produce studied is a light, fragrant 
 and readily burning leaf. The plants are set more closely 
 together than used to be common, which makes them grow 
 up slimmer and taUer. They can accordingly be topped 
 higher up and jaeld more of the best kind of leaves. The 
 leaves are dehvered to the society in three grades of 
 ■quahty and emerge from the fermenting process in six. 
 The society, commanding a substantial supply, is in a 
 position to insist upon price for quality from the factories, 
 with which it deals without intermediary. And growers 
 "find that in consequence of this they are better off. They 
 receive more for their tobacco and there is accordingly 
 more inducement to cultivate it. In some parts of Belgium 
 — for instance in the district of Wervicq and in the valley 
 of the Semois, which are both weU adapted for tobacco 
 growing — the introduction of that plant (only about thirty 
 years ago) is said to have completely transformed the face 
 'of the country, peophng it with small holders, and putting 
 prosperity in the place of want. Tobacco must accord- 
 ingly be pronounced a crop well suited for the practice of 
 Co-operation. 
 
 Hops, on the other hand, of which we still have a 
 fair array to show in our southern and western counties, 
 and which rather badly want a lift, have not responded 
 favourably to the advances made by Co-operation. To 
 some extent the cause may be the same which has stood 
 in the way of uniform success in co-operative wine pressing^ 
 such as is much practised abroad. " II ne sufflt pas d'avoir 
 une bonne machine," so Leon Say has explained the point ; 
 ■" ilfaut aussi avoir un bon mecanicien." The most favour- 
 
178 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 able conditions for Co-operation are of no avail if there 
 is not good management. In respect of such conditions 
 wine has the advantage of hops. For, wheresis hops 
 constitute a decidedly speculative and risky crop — ^risky 
 in yield, risky in demand, and the superlative of risky in 
 fluctuating price — wine of the ordinary table sort — and 
 that is what is mostly produced by co-operating cultivators 
 — forms in wine-drinking countries a staple article of 
 commerce, fairly stable in price and always in demand. 
 Nevertheless we have been furnished with all too ample 
 opportunity of judging what havoc indifferent manage- 
 ment and disregard of commercial principles will work, 
 even in this promising industry, which has, where rightly 
 practised, within safe limits, doubled the return from grapes- 
 to the small grower. To the present day vine growers^ 
 acting on safe lines, operating simply to get rid of their 
 produce on better terms, make a good thing of Co-opera- 
 tion, whether it be the pioneers on the Moselle and the 
 Ahr, or the socialist Vignerons Libres de Maraussan, who- 
 have every reason to be satisfied with the results of their 
 Co-operation. However, Jeshurun waxing fat has kicked 
 — in some cases very badly — over the traces, laying himself 
 out for " rigging " the market and demonstratively 
 challenging the incomparably stronger dealers' interest to 
 combat. The worst results were of course to be met with 
 where, as in Austria, the State — that is, as a rule there, 
 the Diets — had raised hopes highest by coming to co- 
 operators' aid with large sums of gift money. However, 
 at bottom co-operative wine pressing is a good practice. 
 Co-operative dealing with hops — we cannot talk of co- 
 operative hop growing — is in a different position. A 
 co-operative society could not itself convert its hops into 
 beer. Therefore it must needs seek for buyers for them. 
 And there are few cases conceivable in which hop growers 
 might find themselves so powerful in the market as to be- 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 179 
 
 able to defy dealers and insist on terms. The world's 
 hop-garden is too large for that. Accordingly terms must 
 be come to with dealers. Now the price of hops fluctuates 
 exceedingly. The aim of Co-operation is to steady price 
 and, if possible, to bind both parties beforehand to a fair 
 figure for the entire season. But that would in this 
 instance have to be a price only for a wholly inadequate 
 quantity. For a grower cannot bind himself to deliver 
 much when he does not know whether he will have any 
 crop to sell ; and the dealer cannot bind himself to take 
 a large quantity at a settled price, when he has no oppor- 
 tunity of forming a forecast as to what the current price 
 will be. It is on that shoal that co-operative hop industry 
 in one of its most promising districts. Burgundy, has 
 suffered some damaging experience. And things have 
 not gone much better elsewhere. There have been co- 
 operative hop-growers' societies in rich Alsace, and Belgium 
 has tried to graft them upon its co-operative apparatus, 
 but with Httle result. 
 
 The pressing of ohves for oil — in which we can scarcely 
 compete — has answered a great deal better, alike in France 
 and in Austria — to some extent also in Italy. However 
 Italy, with its close upon six millions of acres of olive 
 yards, at the present time still boasts only fourteen known 
 co-operative olive oil presses, situated mainly in the North, 
 whereas France, with only about 300,000 acres, has at 
 least twenty, with more now forming. In Dalmatia 
 the cultivation of the ohve, accompanied by co-operative' 
 pressing, has fuUy compensated to the province the loss 
 of its once flourishing output of wine, owing to a succession 
 of mischances — mildew, phylloxera, and the Kke. In 
 France such societies are to be met with, of course, mainly 
 in Provence and the Languedoc, where something hke a 
 hundred farmers will join to press their olives in common 
 after an improved style. Pressing in the old-fashioned 
 
t8o co-operation IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 mills, they found the market ghding from them, in favour 
 of the better pressed and refined oils of exotic oleaginous 
 seeds. There are also some such mills in Algeria. The 
 reason why they have succeeded so well — it is true, with 
 some support from the Government, such as in France 
 is scarcely to be evaded — obviously is that olive oil is a 
 ■staple commodity commanding a fairly steady price. 
 
 In Italy small breeders of silk worms have likewise 
 bettered their position by combining to sell their" bozzoli " 
 (cocoons) in common. And similar beginnings are now, 
 very tentatively, in progress, in India where, in addition, 
 people are turning their attention to sugar making out of 
 ■cane — which is an industry of promise in the North-Western 
 provinces — on co-operative lines. Co-operative credit has 
 •already been brought to the rescue of rayats for the pro- 
 vision of improved machinery in sugar mills. In the 
 United States, of course, there is much common marketing 
 •of cotton, but one cannot unfortunately make fully sure 
 that it is genuinely " co-operative." There are reported 
 to be beginnings also of co-operative selling of cotton by 
 the Egyptian fellaheen. 
 
 Flax has thus far proved rather an ungrateful crop 
 to Co-operation. Attempts to utilise it co-operatively 
 have been made both in Ireland and, more particularly, 
 in Austria ; however, in both instances, with scarcely 
 encouraging results. One reason, no doubt, is that there 
 has been a succession of bad harvests. However, after 
 due allowance is made for this, there appears to have been 
 ■something more to stand in the way. It would be un- 
 reasonably timid on that account to discontinue experi- 
 ments. So very much in this matter depends upon the 
 -quality of the flax gro-wn, upon its uniformity and observ- 
 ance of the right time for pulling. One fact adduced as 
 a hindrance, namely, that flax is not a regulation rotation 
 <;rop, cannot count for much. No ordinary farmer would 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. i8i 
 
 grow flax on the same large scale that he does wheat or 
 mangels. But once it was found to pay, he might very 
 well fit it into his rotation on a reduced scale, as regularly 
 occupying part of a field. The main hindrance probably 
 is that cultivation has not been carried on with sufficiently 
 minute care and expert skill. Ireland can scarcely afford 
 to be indifferent to this matter, for it seems particularly 
 marked out for flax growing. At the International Con- 
 gress upon the cultivation and utihsation of flax held at 
 Cologne only a few months ago, the Chairman, Herr 
 Wallraff, termed it "the cradle" of the industry. A 
 Dutchman of the name of Crommelin first introduced it 
 into Lisbum. 
 
 The best known animal textile, on the other hand, 
 that is, wool, has in France — and also in the United States 
 — -weU rewarded the co-operative pains bestowed upon 
 it. And one may be thankful that a beginning is now to 
 be made in transplanting the same co-operative process 
 into this country, which in good sooth produces quite 
 enough wool to demand attention. With the best market 
 in the world at every producer's door we have to sell our 
 wool cheaply, because we neglect the preparation that that 
 market requires. What sells Colonial wool to so much 
 greater advantage is that it comes upon the market care- 
 fully and scientifically sorted, so that every user of it 
 may take his choice. Our British wool is sold in fleeces, 
 or rather in bales of fleeces. That means less money for 
 the good portions, without any addition made for the 
 worse. But when it comes to sorting, small growers of 
 wool — and indeed tolerably large ones, too — ^have not 
 enough in their modest year's clip to make sorting worth 
 while, let alone that at any rate buyers cannot make sure 
 that the sorting will be done with sufficient skill. Since 
 the year 1900 Dijon boasts for its coimtry. Burgundy — 
 which has close upon 300,000 sheep upon its rich pastures 
 
i82 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 — a co-operative arrangement — it was originally no more 
 — under which a skilled sorter carefully sorts the wool 
 brought to him at a certain market, selected for that 
 purpose, and seUs it accordingly — at very much improved 
 prices, which buyers are glad to give for the sorted article. 
 What used previously to go for 1.80 francs thenceforth 
 fetched 2.20 francs. On the top of this, in 1906 a co- 
 operative society of wool growers was formed, holding its 
 regular wool sales. The capital is provided by 100 francs 
 shares, on which interest is hmited to 4 per cent. The 
 society employs a skilled and accredited sorter, who, in 
 consideration of a small fee of \A. to id. per kilo (about 
 2 lbs.), does the sorting and marketing. Something 
 similar is done at Rheims and also at Chaumont-sur-Aire, 
 and wool growers taking part in the venture appear 
 satisfied with the results. We are, under the auspices of 
 the Agricultural Organisation Society, to have something 
 similar in this country, which can scarcely fail to answer, 
 if properly managed. Only it comes rather late. 
 
 Co-operation, stiU agricultural, has likewise been- 
 called into requisition for the better utilisation of forest 
 and moor products. Who does not know of those wide 
 expanses of monotonous pine forests, left as Nature created 
 rather than planted them, on the partly wet and partly 
 sandy mounds and plains of the " Landes," stretching 
 forth from sunny Arcachon and La Teste, with its nursery 
 of baby oysters suppljdng most of the oyster beds of 
 Europe with " spawn," towards the Spanish frontier ? 
 Those miserable pines, " bled " by continuous scratching 
 for rosin to the whiteness of wool and the inflammability 
 of straw, supply the resinous raw material out of which 
 turpentine is made. There are many comparatively small 
 men owning parts of those forests. These have combined 
 to co-operative societies and now collect and convert their 
 rosin in common. They all gain by it. The principal of the 
 societies so formed sells its 10,000 barrels of rosin in the yesir. 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 183 
 
 Germany has turned its attention to a different kind 
 of ligneous product more familiar to ourselves. There 
 are considerable stretches of land in Prussia suited to the 
 cultivation of osiers, to the remunerativeness of which 
 plant our Board of Agriculture has recently called atten- 
 tion. Osier beds have been exploited to advantage in 
 more districts than one of this country by occupants of 
 large farms. But it requires Co-operation to make them 
 profitable also upon a reduced scale for small farmers. 
 To make such osiers more profitable Prussian growers have 
 combined to co-operative societies, more particularly with 
 a view to cheapening the peeUng and to faciUtate the 
 marketing. There is a considerable sale of osier switches, 
 large quantities of which are annually exported into 
 Sweden. The principal co-operative peeUng establish- 
 ment is at Graudenz. 
 
 Another heath product still, on which Co-operation 
 has fastened its sway, is peat. There are large expanses 
 of peat moss in Germany, in Sweden, and perhaps even 
 more in Finland — ^which lastnamed has, under the guid- 
 ance of the " Pellervo," become a most " co-operative " 
 country. Much of such area is composed of the properties 
 of small men and, siace on small areas peat cannot well be 
 turned systematically to account, these men have combined 
 to dig and work their peat in common, pressing (in Finland 
 mostly cutting) peat cakes out of it, or else converting it 
 into moss Utter. In Germany this is a question simply 
 of turning the product to better account. In Finland and 
 Sweden it not imfrequently assumes the importance of a 
 question of providing the small men of a village with the 
 necessary fuel and htter. Accordingly in Finland and 
 Sweden, wherever the villagers have not peat moss of 
 their own, they buy such for common exploitation, taking 
 care to purchase their " moss " near their village. Co- 
 operation admits of the emplojmaent of more perfected 
 
i84 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 machinery and processes of work, cis well as of more 
 systematic exploitation of the moss, and in addition, where 
 sale is an object, it greatly facilitates such. Finland in 
 1909 numbered over fifty co-operative peat-moss societies 
 and the number was then steadily increasing. 
 
 Although these lastnamed uses, to which Co-operation 
 has been put,may not appeal to us directly for imitation, they 
 may all the same prove useful as showing the many-sided- 
 ness of co-operative practice and suggesting its application 
 to produce more natural to our soil. 
 
 Our main business in this connection is, however, 
 likely to lie with the sale of fruit and vegetables — garden 
 produce — generally such as Nature provides for us in 
 abundance and of prized quaUty, with all the advantages 
 of proximity to our markets in our favour. Those markets 
 are the chosen markets of the world, to which other nations 
 count it a privilege to be able to send their produce — the 
 French railways running special trains, anticipating in 
 point of priority, and now competing in swiftness with, 
 the famous " Rapide des Fleurs "—to carry the fruit and 
 primeurs, ripened by southern sunshine, to the Channel 
 coast for shipment to us. 
 
 Once more, on this ground, in spite of all such facilities 
 and opportunities, we have remained lamentably back- 
 ward, wiUingly paying British money for foreign produce, 
 and allowing British acres to remain under unprofitable 
 crops, as if a return from land were immaterial to us. 
 Experts of the fruit trade, heard in the recent Fruit 
 Culture Inquiry, showed to what enormous extent we are 
 in this matter fed from abroad, and complained that 
 British growers wiU not take the trouble about their fruit 
 which might ensure to them an additional " £30 an acre." 
 France, with its vast Nature-favoured territory turned into 
 a huge vineyard and market garden, by close personal 
 attention, and Belgium with its " intensive " culture — 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 185 
 
 which Utilises even the shale in the soil for ripening grapes 
 and other fruit requiring heat, for which we have to employ 
 glass— have at length become our schoolmasters in this 
 matter. And France, all astir as it is with the rearing 
 of garden produce for exportation, has early discovered 
 the use of Co-operation as the best means of turning its 
 own facilities to account, by bringing, so to put it, profitable 
 " third-class traffic " into the market. In this— to apply 
 Baron Bethmann-Hollweg's reference to "detail work" 
 — the work of hundreds of thousands of small, in many 
 cases very small, cultivators, sending in their driblets of 
 produce to grace our own or Parisian tables — combination 
 has proved absolutely indispensable ; and, taking the 
 shape of what we know as " Co-operation," it has produced 
 its usual, beneficent results, to the profit of those co- 
 operating. The mass of produce sent to us — say, only 
 from France — and its variety, are truly remarkable. The 
 first society, I believe — writing from memory — to organise 
 this " rapide " wholesale service of entire trains run 
 through from the south to the Channel coast, was the 
 Agricultural Syndicate of Vaucluse, the members of which 
 had strawberries to sell — at the right time. Now there is 
 produce — -that is, vegetables and fruit and flowers of every 
 kind — carried across France in astonishing abundance. 
 Paimpol and Dunkirk send their potatoes, Caen its carottes de 
 Luc, Trets its melons verts and its immortelles, Cuges its 
 capers, Rocquevaire its apricot pulp — of which it produces 
 £16,000 worth in the year — Carpentras its strawberries, 
 Groslay its pears and plums. Burgundy its black currants in 
 profusion, Romorantin its asparagus and beans, the Yonne 
 its cherries, all the south, from Perpignan to the Var, its 
 grapes and its flowers — in their natural shape or else 
 distilled to perfumes — Toulouse more specifically its violets. 
 Plougastel-Daoulas (in Brittany) employs two special 
 steamers during the season to supply us, via Plymouth, 
 
i86 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 with strawberries and pears. Two hundred and fifteen 
 small farmers, comprising a fuU third of the population 
 of the village, have combined to a co-operative society, 
 which in 1908 sent us 667 tons of such produce of the value 
 of 385,215 francs, out of which 197,656 francs was reckoned 
 to be pure profit. The Herault, having sought reUef for 
 over-cheapness of over-produced wine by cultivating table 
 grapes (chasselas), during the season sends up to Paris 
 nightly a special train of from thirty to forty trucks laden 
 with such fruit. At Paris the annual dehveries of fruit 
 from the provinces have increased, by the Orldans line, 
 from 7,572 tons in 1380-89, to 24,834 tons in 1901-08 ; 
 by the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean line from 17,130 
 ions to 34,239. Of the 398,500 tons of fruit (exclusive 
 of lemons, oranges, bananas, grape fruit and the like) 
 that we imported into the United Kingdom in 1908, France 
 supphed no less than 66,500 tons — apples, pears, plums, 
 and the hke, that we might have grown for ourselves. 
 And she complains that that is not enough ! 
 
 One particular branch of fruit culture that is co- 
 operatively exploited to good purpose is that of black 
 currants {cassis), which are grown in. Burgundy in great 
 abundance and of highly valued aroma. This trade was 
 not long ago entirely in the dealers' hands. And dealers 
 manipulated it to their own profit to the extent of defraud- 
 ing growers of a good part of what was due to them, and 
 also of terribly unsettling the market. In this, one of the 
 steadiest of fruit crops, with a remarkably steady demand, 
 prices went violently up and down, varying, in 1904, 
 between 8 centimes and 60. This was, as MM. Martin 
 and Martenot explain in their most interesting book '' La 
 ■Cote d'Or," " le resuUat de manoeuvres de speculation." 
 The growers very rightly rebelled against it by com- 
 bination and direct (collective) sale, well organised on the 
 several markets so as to overcrowd none and yet keep 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 187 
 
 all supplied. The measure has proved completely success- 
 ful. Prices have become steady, and the growers receive 
 more money for their fruit. 
 
 To push their lucrative export trade, French co- 
 operators have provided cold storage, both in trains and 
 in special depots, such as at Montreuil-sous-Bois, Bourg- 
 la-Reine and, on a small scale, at Condrieu (near Lyons), 
 fitted up with special refrigerators made in Alsace, in which 
 dep6ts fruit may be safely stored — cherries for fifteen 
 days (after which period the stalks begin to break off), 
 strawberries up to twenty days, apricots for thirty to forty 
 days, peaches, if put in at the right moment, for from 
 forty to fifty days. Grapes will keep for months. With 
 the help of cold storage cars in trains fruit may safely be 
 • carried a distance of 1,250 miles. And the expense is 
 small. It is calculated at 1.20 francs for 100 kilogrammes 
 (about 2 cwts.) for thirty days. 
 
 And if, on the one hand, the quantity of this produce 
 seems to call for remark, so does, on the other, the minute-' 
 ness of pains bestowed upon it in its growing stages by 
 small owners on their sometimes tiny garden beds. It 
 is small cultivation perfected, as only Co-operation with 
 its watchful vigilance can perfect it, and massed together 
 for economical transport and profitable sale, as only 
 Co-operation can mass it, which has effected this result. 
 To this fact it is due that the commercial value of the 
 produce raised has been so remarkably increased — at 
 Vallaron, for instance, the price reahsed for orange blossoms 
 from 0.30 francs to 1.50 and even 2.00 francs. 
 
 In France pulp making is extensively practised. 
 Whatever of the enormous mass of fruit there produced 
 cannot be got rid of to Paris, England or Germany, is 
 preserved, and to a great extent made into pulp, which 
 constitutes one of the most useful articles of trade. Pulp- 
 ing can be carried out only on a large scale ; hence it 
 
I8g CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 distinctly calls for Co-operation. But the installation 
 required for it is not costly. A plant to be purchased for 
 £120 to £160 will suffice for turning out 60 cwts. a day. 
 For making pulp, fruit is sterilised in tins, after the removal 
 of stalks and stems. Roquevaire turns out large quantities 
 of apricot pulp ; Dijon, the Cote-d'Or generally, the 
 Bouches-du-Rhone and Vaucluse provide mainly black 
 and red currants, cherries, raspberries, and plums. It 
 seems odd that we should have to fiU our store rooms with 
 pulp from foreign parts, when one of our standing com- 
 plaints is that we cannot find a remunerative market for 
 our own fruit — in its raw state — in this country. 
 
 There is more of this same co-operative trade. Swit- 
 zerland, Belgium, Italy, and also Germany and Austria, 
 have their own tales to tell. Belgium and Holland — with, 
 its tuins — frighten German growers with their exports into 
 Germany. Switzerland pours its fruit by trainfuls into 
 the " Fatherland." And there are exchanges of grapes, 
 to improve the vintage. Nor does Italy lag behind with 
 its sun-browned grapes and other produce. 
 
 In the United States — in which, to accept a statement 
 made by the United States Department of Agriculture, 
 " more than half the National Agriculture, as represented, 
 in altogether 6,100,000 farms, is (let us say, ' more or less ') 
 co-operatively orgeinised " — the things done in respect of 
 fruit astonish one by their bigness. The Cahfornian Fruit 
 Growers, having close upon 12,000 members, cultivate, 
 among them, about 120,000 acres, and despatch annually 
 about 15,000,000 boxes of fruit. The Wathen Fruit 
 Growers' Association in 1910 (being then five years old) 
 disposed of about 40,000,000 boxes, equal to about 100 
 railway truck loads of strawberries alone, in addition to 
 35,000 boxes of grapes (of which the district as a whole 
 despatched 50,000, showing Co-operation to have secured 
 the hon's share of the trade), 10,000 boxes of raspberries. 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 189- 
 
 20,000 of blackberries, 62,500 baskets of cherries, currants 
 and gooseberries, and 326 truck loads of apples, to the 
 collective value (for apples) of £35,000. Surely here is an 
 example to take to heart ! One measure which is said to 
 have contributed very materially to the improvement in 
 the state of the market is the practice adopted of selhng 
 fruit by pubhc auction. 
 
 There are two points upon which, in connection with 
 this clas£ 'f industries, we shall do well to fix our attention 
 from the -st, the claims of which speak for themselves 
 and the necessity of urging which the recent Inquiry into- 
 Fruit Culture has made abundantly clear. 
 
 The first is the importance of growing the most 
 marketable produce ; the second is the most businesshke 
 organisation of the sale. 
 
 How much we err in respect of the first of these two- 
 points has been plainly shown by the evidence given in 
 the course of the abovenamed inquiry. " We cannot sell 
 ten bushels hardly of one variety of English fruit. You 
 do not know what you are going to have with English 
 fruit. We cannot get our grocers to keep Enghsh apples, 
 because we cannot depend upon keeping up a supply. 
 It is almost impossible to get fresh customers on to English 
 apples." 
 
 That mistake has been completely got over in Colonial 
 and United States societies, and also in France. Growers 
 there know on what side their bread is buttered, and they 
 themselves take care to have the butter by cultivating more- 
 uniformly and more carefully. This it is, in part, which 
 has made the United States fruit auctions, which are 
 largely responsible for the success obtained, so useful and 
 so easily arranged. " The knowledge of the market," so 
 says an American writer reporting on the fruit industry 
 of the United States in the Bulletin of the International 
 Institute of Agriculture, " is not enough ; one must also- 
 
-tgo CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 satisfy its requirements, providing the consumers with 
 the kinds of fruit for which they have a national prefer- 
 ence ; the fruits supphed must also be of a quality not 
 only good and sound, but uniform and typical, so that 
 uniform prices may be established, or prices only varying 
 for large classes." And such study of producing uniform, 
 ■" typical " fruit is rightly carried further, so as to provide 
 for a maximum of uniform and good fruit, " fancy " or 
 " choice," in one " Union." In some Unions in the United 
 States this result has been carried to such a point that 
 90 per cent, of the fruit delivered comes up to the mark 
 ■of satisfactory saleableness. 
 
 As regards businesslike management, the first point 
 is that of grading. 
 
 " The most important part out and out in the matter," 
 so writes M. Raymond Gavoty, a fit spokesman for 
 the French, as being President of the Union of Agricul- 
 tural Syndicates of the Alps and Provence, "is the very 
 careful grading of goods, the offer of them in a presentable 
 condition and the steidy delivery of goods of good 
 quality and strictly uniform." * 
 
 The Americans have various gradations, the two 
 topmost of which are " choice" and "fancy," which 
 latter means very carefuUy selected, one by one, rejecting 
 every fruit that shows the slightest flaw, if it be only 
 a speck of the size of a pin's head upon the peel. 
 
 The next point is packing. And in the United 
 States we find that Fruit Growers' Unions have their 
 own skilled and trained, responsible "packers," who 
 manage the business and may be trusted to do this. 
 To make ' his responsibility effective, every packer is 
 required to stamp his own particular mark upon every 
 
 * " La question qui prime tout c'est le triage severe de la 
 marchandise, la bonne presentation et la regularite d'expedition 
 ■de produits trte uniformes et de bonne qualite." 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 191 
 
 ■case or box that he packs, for any faulty condition 
 in which he is subsequently called to account. The 
 packers are paid by the box packed and can easily earn 
 2j to 3 dollars a day. 
 
 And the third point is the study of the market. 
 The "Peninsular Products Exchange of Maryland" 
 pays something hke 10,000 dollars a year on nothing 
 but the collection and diffusion of information as to 
 the condition of the fruit market. But all this has 
 resulted in fruit growers obtaining — in some districts, 
 for instance in the "Hood River Apple Growers' 
 Union " — just double the price that they used to obtain 
 before resort to Co-operation, and in the violent fluctuations 
 of price in earlier times being brought to an end. 
 
 The teaching of the markets, the example of our 
 colonial fellow citizens with their huge fruit culture, 
 the example also of such homes of research as Woburn, 
 and the most useful instruction given by Lady Warwick 
 and her competent deputy Miss Edith Bradley, have 
 at length brought the more enlightened among us to 
 understand the value of growing superior qualities of 
 fruit, and growing more or less uniform crops, so as to 
 be able to contract, not indeed for the "100,000 bushels " 
 of uniform fruit that dealers speak of as coming from 
 single firms in the Colonies, but at any rate for large 
 consignments which will furnish supplies for some little 
 time. There is, once more, something like " a rent " 
 between an inferior and mixed apple crop from an old- 
 fashioned farm garden, and the neatly uniform, carefully^ 
 graded fruit of a superior kind, selected so as to suit 
 the particular soil and site, which comes to us from the 
 Colonies. In that "forest of fruit trees " in the western 
 counties, 76 per cent, of whose produce in apples goes 
 into the cider press, the difference may not be a matter 
 -of very great account. Nevertheless, even in cider press- 
 
192 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 ing, the quality and sameness of fruit do make a difference 
 — as witness the higher price gladly paid in Germany 
 for the noted "Borsdorf " cider, the "Borsdorf " apple 
 being a favourite variety, in taste rather resembling 
 our "Cox's Pippins. " And in France, Co-operation is 
 successfully practised for cider-making. For table fruit, 
 however, the mixed, ungraded, probably not even carefully 
 packed lot of apples is not " in it " by the side of better- 
 prepared produce. The same thing holds good of other 
 fruit, and of every variety of vegetables. The entire world 
 appears to have come round to the view of "the Colonel " 
 in Swift's "Polite Conversation," who modestly protested 
 that "the best was good enough for him." And there 
 is "money" in studying the taste of customers. In 
 the Agricultural Organisation Society society members 
 have found that after taking our advice to pack 
 their fruit carefully, they netted a better price ; and 
 when, on the top of this, they took to grading it, they 
 did better still. And they discover no inclination what- 
 ever to revert to their old happy-go-lucky ways — because, 
 as was stated by one highly experienced witness in the 
 Fruit Culture Inquiry, nothing pays better. "The 
 packing of English fruit is by universal testimony ex- 
 ceedingly bad as a rule. It compares most unfavourably 
 with that of foreign and colonial fruit." And grading 
 alone was shown to make a difference of so many shillings 
 a bushel on the price received for the whole crop, " perhaps 
 representing £^^0 an acre." 
 
 There is little more required to satisfy our second 
 ' postulate. For our market is practically everywhere in 
 our country, and ready — in truth, eager — to receive British 
 produce, if offered in good — let us say "habitually 
 good " — condition. And even where a stiff railway tariff 
 opposes an obstacle. Co-operation knows how to overcome 
 that. In connection with this it deserves to be pointed 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 193 
 
 ■out that everywhere else, and more particularly in France, 
 even the marked improvement observed in the fruit 
 "trade, carried on on a large scale, as practised by Co-opera- 
 tive societies, can be distinctly traced to facihties 
 accorded by the Railway Companies. The history of 
 the improvement of the fruit trade, so in substance 
 stated M. Gavoty at the Congress of Evian, is none other 
 than the history of improved railway facilities. For- 
 tunately our Railway Companies seem alive to the value 
 to their shareholders of improved facilities for the traffic 
 referred to and are willing to meet us. 
 
 The formation of a society fortunately presents 
 no serious difficulties — provided that the two cardinal 
 conditions can be satisfied of the presence of sufficient, 
 though it be moderate, cash to set the society a going ; 
 and also sufficient support to ensure an adequate, regular 
 supply of material. 
 
 The amount of money contributed need not be large 
 — unless a society overambitiously lays itself out for 
 costly "dep6ts." But there must be some. The society 
 must be able to stand upon its own legs. There may 
 be borrowed money, or money contributed by well 
 wishers who look for no personal benefit beyond a fair 
 Tate of interest. But there must be a certain amount 
 of share capital, belonging to participating members ; 
 and the more there is of such, the better will the society 
 fare. You cannot rely altogether upon borrowed capital. 
 The scheme of organisation which has become known 
 as that of the "Federated Growers" of Birmingham, 
 has much to recommend it. It makes every member 
 take up at least one £x share at the outset. After that, 
 in respect of every £50 of produce sold through the society, 
 the member is required to take up another £z share, 
 -until he holds ten in all. That holding entitles him 
 to sell through the society £500 worth of produce per 
 
194 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE 
 
 annum. Out of the profits accruing interest is paid 
 at a rate not exceeding 5 per cent, upon the shares. Of 
 the balance one half is carried to reserve ; and not less- 
 than 5 per cent, is paid as bonus to workers ; the re- 
 mainder may be credited as bonus to members, in pro- 
 portion to their sales, and to the Industrial Co-operative 
 Society of Birmingham — the support of which, both 
 as a member and as a purchaser, the Committee has wisely- 
 bespoken — in proportion to its purchases. Several other 
 societies have already adopted similar rules — no doubt 
 finding that they must bind their members to somewhat 
 substantial payments. Flesji shrinks from such engage- 
 ment ; but it is necessary to success. The Industrial 
 Society's interest having been enlisted, we have here- 
 a case in which the two branches of the co-operative 
 movement make such common cauae as by their several 
 positions they appear called upon to make. A distribu- 
 tive society has further means of coming to the productive 
 society's aid without sacrifice to itself. It may provide- 
 the hampers required for carriage, the cost of which 
 it may recoup in price, whereas the outlay would weigh 
 heavily upon the infant productive society's slender 
 resources. 
 
 Making sure of an adequate and steady supply 
 of produce is not always an easy matter. People are 
 apt to show themselves sceptical. Who knows but 
 they might manage to do better for themselves. There 
 is always the chapter of accidents. At any rate they 
 would not tjind themselves altogether. So they hang 
 back. And yet the society must have a support that 
 it can rely upon. Wherever a fair nucleus of such 
 support may be counted upon, organisers will not be 
 wrong in beginning, though the first ground to be covered 
 prove a Httle rough, hoping for recruits to drop in as 
 they move along. But where the support to be obtained 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 195 
 
 fails to reach such modicum of volume, the proposed 
 society had better not be formed ; for it can do no good. 
 What support it obtains the society must take care 
 to make thoroughly loyal. There have been societies, 
 formed under favourable conditions, shipwrecked because 
 members would play fast and loose with them : — accept 
 an attractive offer from a dealer for their best fruit 
 (or other produce), and then "shoot " the inferior 
 balance upon their society to do with as best it could. 
 A leading Swiss society, which had not exercised sufficient 
 caution, has lost much money by this. Fortunately 
 it was too strong to lose position. But its fruit trade 
 it has not been able to set down as altogether a success. 
 And that mainly, as its historian shows in the published 
 history of the society — the annual Reports tell the same 
 tale — because members were irregular in their deliveries 
 and not loyal in their support, but expected, as it is 
 frankly put, to " make a profit out of their fellow members." 
 That same society appears to have experienced a further 
 difficulty in being called upon to sell produce of too 
 great variety, so to call it, "bobbery " fruit. In England 
 certainly it is of the utmost importance that of the 
 produce to be offered there should be enough of the same 
 kind to last some httle time. It is the uniformity of the 
 produce which sells it. It is not, indeed, to be expected 
 that any society will confine itself exclusively to one 
 particular kind of produce, be it apples or pears or plums, 
 or anything else. Such instances may occur ; and 
 in them business will be pronouncedly "seasonal," and 
 " seasonal " of the briefest kind. But within the hmits 
 of each category the society will do well to study uniformity 
 so as to acquire a reputation for its speciality- -which 
 speciality, of course, it should endeavour, after adequate 
 study, to make the most suitable ahke to its peculiar 
 conditions and to its market. This is not a question of 
 
T96 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 apples or pears or plums only, but of specific kinds of 
 such fruit, and equally so of vegetables. 
 
 Being grown, the produce ought to be carefully 
 " graded," and well and carefully packed. Both processes 
 are, as has been shown, very generally neglected in this 
 country. And yet success depends upon nothing more 
 than upon their being expertly carried out. 
 
 Bringing such produce upon the market opens a new 
 chapter of difficulties. After the failure of the late Lord 
 Winchilsea's ambitious scheme, and of dozens of similar 
 projects attempted abroad, one is sorry to see advocates 
 of Co-operation fall back once more upon the idea of 
 maintaining dep6ts. The objections to such course have 
 already been set forth. A good producer may — indeed is 
 very likely to — prove a sorry salesman. The way in 
 which a co-operative society should proceed has been 
 very properly and clearly marked out by the Danish Egg, 
 Butter, and Bacon societies. Its aim should be to 
 establish a dominant reputation for quality, to be depended 
 upon, which is sure to command custom such as will be 
 much better ministered to by skilled salesmen other than 
 agricultural co-operators. Brands, trade marks, adver- 
 tising, appeals to the eye, are all perfectly in place. But 
 it is only in rare instances that co-operative productive 
 societies' shop trade has answered. It is for distributive 
 societies to practise that. Hence the importance of inter- 
 relations. 
 
 In this island the Blairgowrie co-operative fruit 
 growers have in respect of the point here urged set an 
 excellent example. They have focussed their business in 
 a centre, which is in communication, by telephone and 
 telegraph, with all the centres for sale and the sources of 
 supply coming into account. At that centre they maintain 
 a dependable skilled manager. And with such help they 
 •do just what the Eastern Counties Co-operative Farmers 
 
DISPOSAL OF OTHER PRODUCE. 197 
 
 do with their hve stock, that is, they direct the goods from 
 their several producing places to the best suited market, 
 put a skilled agent in charge of them, and so, while avoiding 
 a glut anywhere, secure for their members the highest 
 price that a skilled man can obtain. As time goes on we 
 may expect to do very much more business with the 
 industrial societies. That will be well and good. If some 
 societies choose to take up their position in Covent Garden, 
 like the East Anglian Farmers, or at Birmingham, hke the 
 Federated Growers, and offer to act as agents for co- 
 operators elsewhere, one is bound to wish them success. 
 It is for the moment their speculation. Let us hope that 
 out of this offer some well organised federation for business 
 purposes wiU develop, such as might benefit the co-opera- 
 tive fruit and vegetable trade generally. But for the 
 moment it is a venture. And generally speaking mere 
 agency promises to pay best and involve least expense 
 and risk. 
 
 A subject closely allied to fruit growing is that of 
 preserving fruit grown, so as to avoid a glut and at the 
 same time extend the period of sale. Mr. Gladstone 
 recommended " jam." There is no reason why farmers 
 should not combine for the co-operative making of cider 
 or perry, just as they do abroad for pressing their grapes. 
 But the idea of jam occurs most naturally to us jam-eating 
 Britons. We have it on the authority of leading men in 
 the jam trade that the taste for jam is steadily extending. 
 Whatever politicians of a past day may have thought, the 
 pubhc now is "on the side of Mr. Gladstone." There is 
 fruit bottUng also, which our Board of Agriculture has 
 singled out for special recommendation. However, there 
 is very Httle " pulp " made in this country. And yet, 
 there seems not a little call for it. For pulp possesses the 
 good quality of keeping for years ; and it is most useful 
 for converting into sugared products. Indeed, our manu- 
 
 o 
 
198 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 facturers of preserves use large quantities of it. Only the 
 great bulk of what they use comes from abroad. 
 
 Vegetables likewise will bear preserving. There is 
 indeed plenty of scope for their production and also for 
 their bottling and tinning. We receive such large quan- 
 tities from abroad ! And their cultivation and manufacture 
 lend themselves so very readily to co-operative practice ! 
 Why do we not grow more tomatoes ? On the Woolwich 
 Society's farm they jdelded £go an acre. There is a 
 French agricultural syndicate — ^in this instance answering 
 to a co-operative society; — which turns out its 1,000 tons 
 annually for the Paris market. 
 
 Co-operation has in Great Britain not remained 
 altogether idle or barren on the ground here spoken of. 
 We have, apart from the Blairgowrie Society already 
 mentioned, a very modest array of produce growing 
 co-operative societies also in England, some of which 
 have begun well. Apart from the East Anghan and 
 Birmingham societies already spoken of, there are the 
 Pershore Fruit Market, also the Worthing and District 
 Market Growers' Association. There is a society in 
 Guernsey ; there are others in Bromsgrove, Marton in 
 Lancashire, Swanwick, Halstead, Badsey. And a district 
 in Anglesey has, under Lord Boston's lead, converted itself 
 into a second Haarlem, producing, co-operatively, narcissus 
 bulbs and flowers. But the entire movement is stiU only 
 in its early infancy. And results are, accordingly, re- 
 stricted. One may hope that now that Agricultural 
 Co-operation has become fashionable, and the Board of 
 Agriculture is making laudable efforts to promote it, this 
 particular branch of it, which, among productive branches, 
 appears to promise the best results, and which is so truly 
 congenial to our circumstances, will be widely taken up 
 and practised. 
 
199 
 
 X.— LIVE STOCK IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 Later, generally speaking, than ourselves, foreign 
 nations have learned to appreciate the value of having 
 improved Hve stock on their farms — Uve stock which bears 
 a better look, and yields better produce, and sells for a 
 very much better price tham the old. But once the lesson 
 was learned, it was weU taken to heart and, in a truly 
 democratic way, carried very much further than it has been 
 among our own fine pedigree herds or in our primitive bull 
 and boar societies. Foreign Governments, more especially 
 in Germany and Switzerland, have been in many instances 
 truly lavish in their pains and their pecuniary support, 
 to encourage the improvement of stock of every kind — 
 horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, down to rabbits and goats 
 (which lastnamed are by no means despised as farm stock) 
 — in the main by the employment of well-bred sires 
 distributed over the country, or else by severe limitations 
 in licensing — ^without which no sire may be employed 
 outside its own stud or herd— and, lastly, by pubUc grants 
 and by prize competitions. And although local patriotism 
 may occasionally have run away with better judgment, 
 as favouring local breeds, where others might have been 
 employed to greater advantage, in any case the value of 
 the stock kept, and its productive capacity, have by such 
 means been enormously augmented. 
 
 However, Government assistance alone, so it was 
 soon found, could not accompHsh everjdihing in the matter. 
 There must be willing stock owners as well, to take advan- 
 tage of the help given eind, beyond this, to act indepen- 
 dently for themselves. Among small folk doing this was 
 
2O0 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 found possible only by means of Co-operation. There 
 must be a number of men to act in common, or the expense 
 would prove crushing and the results disappointing. It 
 is on such grounds that a pecuUar type of co-operative 
 societies has been generated abroad, of which we in this 
 country as yet know httle, if anything — namely, societies 
 for the improvement of members' live stock of various 
 kinds, by systematic breeding and attention given to 
 females as well as to males, and to their yield as well as 
 to their form, and by the exclusion of faulty specimens 
 from co-operative herds. We have, of course, our stud- 
 book and herdbook societies and the hke, and they do 
 excellent work. But their object is not at all the same 
 as that here spoken of. Foreign countries have them 
 hkewise. These societies get up shows and prize com- 
 petitions, and keep genealogical records. But they do 
 not co-operate for economic purposes, enabhng the small 
 farmer to take his place as a breeder of pedigree animals 
 by the side of the large one, and thereby to realise greatly 
 increased prices. 
 
 That is in itself an answer to the possible objection 
 among ourselves, that in view of the high place that we 
 have conquered, even in the outside world's estimation, 
 by our highly improved breeding, among ourselves similar 
 societies do not seem called for. Our breeding notoriously 
 does stand high. But there are many enough small 
 farmers who, owing to the scantiness of their means, and 
 their want of knowledge, derive no benefit from it. It is 
 these men that co-operative breeding is designed to assist. 
 It makes a world of difference, as we now know, whether 
 a cow or a pig is of good breed or of bad. Also one cannot 
 by any means make sure that our show breeding, even in 
 the wealthy man's yard, is really economically the best, 
 as yielding the best returns. The proof of the cow is in 
 the milking ; that of the pig in the fattening. On such 
 
LIVE STOCK IMPROVEMENT. 2or 
 
 points co-operative rearing is likely to prove more useful 
 than wealthy men's fancy breeding, as being more com- 
 monly utilitarian. 
 
 It also deserves to be pointed out that Co-operation 
 has a voice for the small man where pure reason and even 
 Government pressure may prove ineffective. An instance of 
 this is what has happened in Eastern Flanders, where the 
 authorities had long fruitlessly done their uttermost to 
 promote improved breeding of cows by means of shows, 
 prizes and attempted compulsion. Their injunction was 
 that every parish should hold an annual show, towards 
 which they freely offered money. There was no response. 
 The small Belgian, like his brother in Sussex, "wun't be 
 druv." Co-operation came on the scene, giving the peasant 
 a motive to wiU as well as to do, and shows are now 
 regularly held and largely attended, and breeds have in 
 consequence been greatly improved. There is accordingly 
 something to be said for Co-operation. 
 
 Practical co-operation in live stock keeping may be 
 said to have begun, not with the breeding but with the 
 purchase of cattle. An early form of this, which has 
 37ielded good results, is that of the Thurgau Viehleihkassen 
 or Caisses Thurgoviniennes, to which I have called attention 
 at greater length elsewhere.* Originating in the Swiss 
 canton of Thurgau, it has quickly spread into some adjoin- 
 ing cantons, where it is found to work equally well. The 
 " co-operative society " in this case is the civil parish — 
 which often enough embraces two or three ecclesiastical 
 parishes and therefore represents a rather substantial body 
 of ratepayers. In a parish meeting these ratepayers 
 decide by vote whether to estabhsh a Viehleihkasse or not. 
 If the vote be favourable, they give the cowkeepers in the 
 
 ♦'see "The Poor ilan's Cow" in the "National Review" of 
 October, 189-i, and pp. 396 and 397 in "People's Banks" 
 (Third Edition). 
 
302 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 parish the unstinted use of their common credit, in order 
 to enable them — supposing that their apphcation for credit 
 is approved as warranted under the circumstances — ■ 
 adequately to stock their little holding with cows. Such' 
 ■cows in the first instance the parish buys itself, through 
 its officers appointed for the purpose, handing them over 
 afterwards to the applicants and keeping a lien upon 
 them. The officers mentioned have a voice in the selection 
 ■of each particular cow, which has furthermore to pass an 
 examination by the parish veterinary surgeon and must 
 of course be insured and also weU fed, to the satisfaction 
 of the parish authoritSes, who steadily inspect the keeping. 
 The price is paid off by instalments, which are occasionally 
 spread out over a very long period. The business has 
 proved remarkably safe, and its result has been that 
 two or three cows are now kept where otherwise there 
 would be only one. 
 
 Something very similar is practised on a small scale in 
 France. Only there it is agricultural syndicates which 
 provide the necessary money to the extent of four-fifths of 
 the price of the cow, to be made sure by insurance up to the 
 full amount advanced, and to be repaid within four years. 
 This system is said to work well. But of course a Raiffeisen 
 bank could, without special organisation, render precisely 
 the same services as do those specially organised syndicates 
 and the parishes in Switzerland. There is another organi- 
 sation in operation in France, which is likewise reported 
 to work beneficially. It has for its object, not the buying, 
 but only the lending out of cows to small cultivators who 
 lack the means to buy them. The beasts are lent as 
 in-calf heifers, for the term of three years, to be restored 
 when about to give birth to their fourth calf, at an annual 
 hire of 20 or 30 francs. In the arrondissement of Saint 
 Omer 285 heifers are said to have been lent out in this 
 way since 1908, every one of which was duly restored. 
 INo loss whatever has been sustained. 
 
LIVE STOCK IMPROVEMENT. 303 
 
 All this, however, is not breeding. 
 In specifically milk producing countries the marked 
 difference in the yield of milk as between carefully bred 
 and selected cows, on the one hand, and ordinary animals 
 on the other, was bound to attract notice. Accordingly 
 what are now known as " Control Societies "—that is, 
 societies formed, among other objects, for noting down 
 periodically the yield of milk given by each cow— became 
 at an early date a recognised institution in Switzerland. 
 It is from there that they have spread elsewhere. Looking 
 back upon experience collected through a number of years, 
 we are now in a position to draw an instructive com- 
 parison. Observations made at the pubhc Dairy School 
 at Riitti, in Switzerland, have shown that under the 
 system of " Control," and of judicious mating, the yield 
 of milk per cow has increased from 2,970 (in 1878) to 3,106 
 kilogrammes (in 1888) and 3,700 kilogrammes (in 1905), 
 with a maximum yield of 5,656 kilogrammes recorded, as 
 compared with 4,288 kilogrammes in 1878, and 4,363 in 
 1888. And in the increased quantity of milk — which in 
 itself supplies a powerful argument in favour of improving 
 — the proportion of butterfat, which practically determines 
 the value of the milk, has concurrently gone up from an 
 unknown quantity in 1878 to 3.76 per cent, in 1901 and 
 3.80 per cent, in 1905. And at the present time 4 per 
 cent, is quite common. The Federation of Red-and- White 
 (Simmenthal) ^ Breeding Societies, whose method is pre- 
 sumably more systematic, have still more telling results 
 to show. Their average has gone up to 3,798 kilogrammes, 
 and their maximum to 5,849 kilogrammes, with 3.85 per 
 cent, butterfat. 
 
 Denmark has copied the system of " Control " from 
 Switzerland, and the results in that country have proved 
 no less encouraging. Official figures given in Cooperation 
 dans r Agriculture en Danemark, published in 1910, show 
 
204 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 that in the interval between 1898 and 1908 the average 
 yield of milk has gone up in Denmark from 2,041 to 2,661 
 kilogrammes, and among better class types of cattle to 
 3,000 kilogrammes (660 gallons), and in exceptional cases 
 to 4,500 kilogrammes (990 gallons), and even 6,000 kilo- 
 grammes (1,320 gallons). The figures for butterfat are 
 not given. 
 
 Once more, in the Netherlands, where there is a 
 heavily milking breed of cattle, the average yield per cow 
 has gone up from 812 gallons in 1897 to 1,019 gallons in 
 1904. It has declined a little since, but still stands at 
 8g8 gallons, with, generally speaking, 3.50 per cent, 
 butterfat, as a mean between the two extremes of 2.90 
 and 3.70 per cent. — which is satisfactory, considering that 
 the traditional characteristics of Dutch (and also Frisian 
 and Oldenburg) cattle are: much milk but rather thin. 
 To quote one more case, from Germany — at Soldin, in 
 Brandenburg, among 1,017 cows supervised by a Control 
 Societ}^ formed in 1907, the average yield of milk per cow 
 was found in 1908 to be 2,661 kilogrammes, with 3.22 per 
 cent, butterfat, producing 95 kilogrammes of butter and 
 a net profit of 108.06 marks per cow. There was a rise' 
 in the very next year. And by 1910 the average yield had 
 increased to 2,885 kilogrammes milk, with, it is true, 
 only 3.15 per cent, butterfat, but producing loi kilo- 
 grammes of butter and 132.65 marks net profit, that is, 
 more by 24.59 marks than in 1908, a matter of £1,271 on 
 the 1,017 cows. But, thanks to the improvement brought 
 about by the Control Society, the number of cattle kept 
 had concurrently gone up (including growing beasts) by 
 about ID per cent. The average yield per cow in Ireland 
 is about 450 gallons. 
 
 Now here is conclusive proof of the value of improved 
 breeding. Nobody who had such figures brought under 
 his notice could possibly remain insensible to their meaning. 
 
LIVE STOCK IMPROVEMENT. 205 
 
 And that it is which has led to the organisation of breeding 
 on co-operative hnes, under which submission to the rules, 
 established by experience becomes a necessity. 
 
 Even more than this, however, has been achieved. 
 
 It is the merit of Herr von Wattenwiel, of Elfenau,, 
 near Berne, to have first deduced the practical lesson from 
 the logic here brought under notice. His creative instinct 
 was stimulated by the fact that, under pressure of com- 
 petition, cowkeeping had ceased, even in Switzerland, to 
 yield a fully remunerative return. Even of the whilom 
 noted Gruyere cheese only the very best known brands- 
 would fully repay the making. The price of milk had 
 become subject to violent fluctuations and was likewise- 
 gi^ ing way. There were powerful combinations of middle- 
 men and consumers in the field, pressing it down. How- 
 ever there was one kind of animal production which 
 maintained a high standard of remunerativeness, and that 
 was rearing animals for breeding purposes. Herr von 
 Wattenwiel was accordingly not content with devising 
 means for the improvement of the breed of milch-cows in 
 the possession of farmers. He would enable the small 
 farmer to enter the hsts as a breeder, like the large, in 
 order to obtain remunerative prices for pedigree beasts. 
 His object was to " democratise " breeding. 
 
 For such enterprise conditions in Switzerland appeared 
 generally favourable. For the Swiss are born herdsmen. 
 And Swiss cattle are popular on the whole Continent and, 
 beyond that, in the new world. Their most redoubtable 
 competitors abroad are the heavy black-and-white beasts 
 reared in Holland, Oldenburg and the adjoining marshy 
 districts, suited for lowlying country. The Swiss breeds 
 are distinctively mountain breeds. They are three in num- 
 ber : the heavy brown Schwyz breed, the lighter red-and- 
 white Simmenthal, and the black-and-white Fribourg, 
 which is considered to be a rephca of the Simmenthal 
 
2o6 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 with a changed coat. Of the three the Berne, or Simmen- 
 thal breed, commands the widest market. This breed has 
 become in a way one of the parents of all the valued hiU 
 breeds of Germany. However even pure-bred Swiss cattle 
 wiU not long retain their valued characteristics away from 
 their own mountains, where, during the summer months, 
 when up on their Alpage, they benefit richly by the crisp, 
 fragrant herbage, the invigorating air and the free move- 
 ment allowed. Accordingly there is a constant demand 
 for new, genuinely Swiss blood for infusion in the acclima- 
 tised breeds all over the globe. Hence the Swiss enjoy 
 the valuable advantage of an extensive, never failing 
 market, which makes good prices. 
 
 Bent upon utihsing this circumstance, Herr von 
 Wattenwiel began operations in 1888. He soon got a 
 sufficient number of cowkeepers in his parish together to 
 act ; but he could not even attempt to persuade them, 
 poorish people that they were, to discard at once their 
 haphazard bred cows and invest in pedigree beasts. The 
 sacrifice called for would have been too great. He must 
 accordingly be content to begin with buying a good pure 
 bred bull, and taking care that from the moment of the 
 formation of what was to become a very composite pedi- 
 gree herd not a drop of doubtful blood should be permitted 
 to intrude. 
 
 Herr von Wattenwiel's first Live Stock Improvement 
 Association was formed, like all that have followed, with 
 a capital subscribed in shares, which as a rule range from 
 20 to 50 francs, issued in what number either a member's 
 own choice or else the Rules might determine, and often 
 enough proportioned to the number of cows brought to 
 the " herd " — which is not the same thing as cows owned 
 by the members collectively, inasmuch as after the first 
 formation the society would admit only pedigree beasts 
 to the " herd." The cows to be admitted must first pass 
 
LIVE STOCK IMPROVEMENT. 207 
 
 muster before a tribunal of experts. A man might accord- 
 ingly have more cows in his yard than were recognised as 
 members of the " herd " and admitted to contact with 
 the " herd's" bull. The total number of cows admitted 
 to the " herd " must naturally be regulated by what the 
 bull or bulls could serve. As a rule it stands at about 
 eighty, but in some cases it also rises to 100. Should there 
 be too few " herd " cows to employ the full powers of the 
 bull, then the bull might be allowed, by way of exception, 
 to serve others. But there would be no entry of this in 
 the herdbook. And the " herd's " cows must always have 
 the preference. On their shares members became entitled 
 to a moderate dividend ; but their main benefit was to 
 be sought in having a good bull at their service, and in 
 being placed in a favourable position for disposing of the 
 cows' offspring, being herdbook beasts. The money 
 required for starting a society of this kind Herr von 
 Wattenwiel puts at about ^64, being about the value of 
 a good bull. To secure an income, every member is called 
 upon to pledge himself to bring a determined number of 
 cows to the bull every year. The serving fee as a rule 
 stcinds at only 2 francs, but there are cases in which as 
 much as 5 francs is charged. 
 
 To examine the- cows to be received into the " herd " 
 there is a committee of three experts, upon the competence 
 of whom of course the entire success of the association may 
 be said to depend. The buU is likewise selected with 
 particular care, being, as a lule, bought young. It is a 
 very common practice to have two bulls, one full grown 
 and doing the main work, the other growing up and put 
 to work gradually and sparingly. The bull remains 
 throughout the collective property of the association, and 
 is sold for the association's account whene\-er it grows too 
 heavy, which as a rule happens when it is about five years 
 old, although animals are sometimes used at a more 
 
208 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 advanced age. This is the best practice. In some Belgian^ 
 sj'ndicates, on the other hand, the bull is debited to the- 
 rnan appointed as its keeper at its estimated selling value- 
 to the butcher, and so credited once more when it comes- 
 to be sold, for the keeper's account, who is allowed to- 
 pocket any gain that he may make by skilful bargaining. 
 The drawbacks attaching to this method do not require - 
 to be pointed out. 
 
 The keeping of the bull and all necessary attendance - 
 are invariably committed to one member of the association 
 selected for his peculiar fitness for the task. He is allowed 
 a certain payment for service and keep, settled by agree- 
 ment, and is carefully supervised by a special committee, 
 who stand on no etiquette. In many cases this man 
 receives the serving fees as his own reward ; in others,, 
 he is made to account for them and paid his remuneration 
 b}' fixed salary. The lastnamed seems the better practice.. 
 The Committee see to it that the animal is properly housed, 
 groomed, exercised, or else grazed, and fed on a dietary" 
 prescribed beforehand. A general rule laid down is that 
 it should at all time be in a condition to be sold for" 
 slaughtering to the butcher. The Committee also check 
 the bull's employment. In fact, every particular is- 
 scrupulously supervised ; for the members of the associa- 
 tion well know that if all things are not well done, their- 
 combination will be aU to no purpose. 
 
 The keeping of " herd " cows is hkewise made a 
 subject of regular inspection by the same committee. In 
 consideration of the benefits to be obtained through the 
 association in the better sale of beasts, members are 
 expected, and are quite content, to have their hberty 
 encroached upon and in the matter to be placed under 
 tutelage. 
 
 There is a register for the society, of course ; but 
 societies have long since combined to more or less powerful 
 
LIVE STOCK IMPROVEMENT. 209 
 
 federations, grouped according to the breed kept (Sim- 
 menthal, Schwyz or Fribourg), and such federations inspect 
 on a larger scale and have their common herdbook — which 
 
 •common herdbook, being valuable for sales, constitutes 
 perhaps the most potent inducement to members to join. 
 In such herdbook, apart from the genealogical data, every 
 particular attaching to each animal is noted, whether it 
 be favourable or the reverse. Of course the yield of each 
 cow is put down from year to year ; and it is the yield 
 ■of the dam mainly which determines the selling price of 
 the offspring, whether bull or heifer. 
 
 Both the Federations and the Associations hold 
 independent annual shows, at which all beasts belonging 
 to the particulcir " herd " are exhibited and judged minutely 
 by selected experts on the particular breed, invited from 
 other districts. A distinctive feature is there made of 
 " family " exhibits — the offspring, more particularly of 
 bulls, being shown side by side with their sire, so that 
 people may be able to judge of the permanency of dis- 
 tinctive features. Such shows serve the purpose of a 
 useful advertisement — for they are freely visited by 
 persons interested in the breed. And they are also greatly 
 valued as permitting a comparison showing how the " herd 
 has improved, or else deteriorated, or changed in particular 
 features. 
 
 By such means the difficulties of breeding pedigree 
 beasts in small herds have been successfully surmounted, 
 and small farmers have been enabled to enter the lists 
 
 . against large breeders and sell their young beasts at 
 breeding prices. A young buU, which used to sell for 
 1,000 francs, now fetches 5,000 ; and a calf that was 
 
 ■ considered well got rid of at 40 francs now goes for 100, 
 150, and even 200 francs. There are large numbers sold, 
 in the main at annual markets held severally by the five 
 Federations, comprising among them about 600 associa- 
 
210 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURR.. 
 
 tions, with about 12,000 members — which numbers ihi 
 themselves afford evidence of the popularity of the system.. 
 
 In respect of improving the quality of milch-cows,. 
 Herr von Wattenwiel's associations have accompUshed a 
 great deal. Figures indicating the increased yield of milk 
 have already been quoted. Along with a larger yield, the- 
 quaUty of milk has likewise been improved, and 4 per 
 cent, of butterfat is now a common proportion. In 
 addition to this, the yielding life of cows has been length- 
 ened. Cows ordinarily yield best between their third and 
 fifth calves. But they now go on jdelding in remunerative- 
 quantities up to their twelfth, and sometimes even their 
 fifteenth year. As for the number of beasts sold, the two 
 largest of the five Federations mentioned dispose of 900 
 to 1,000 beasts each annually at their great sales, including - 
 both young bulls and heifers. 
 
 While appreciably improving the animal material for 
 both milk-selling and butter or cheesemaking, this 
 perfected breeding has at the same time sensibly relieved 
 the glut of animals employed in such industries, so that 
 Agriculture has gained by it in two ways. 
 
 An institution so useful and so strongly recommended 
 by its results could scarcely fail to tempt to imitation 
 in other lands. Indeed, paternal Governments, observing 
 what it had accomplished, left cowkeepers little time to 
 bethink themselves upon the matter. German Govern- 
 ments, more particularly South German, early gave what 
 encouragement they could. They detected the advan- 
 tages, not only of studying the improvement of cattle, 
 but also of employing the co-operative method for doing 
 so, in order to enhst the interest and also the judgment 
 and knowledge of those upon whom the main work must 
 fall. The Swiss Government, or rather Governments — 
 for it was the cantons which took the initiative — ^had 
 opened the public purse-strings pretty wide in support 
 
LIVE STOCK IMPROVEMENT. 211 
 
 of this new lift to national Agriculture. By a standing 
 rule the Federation for such purposes doubles whatever 
 the Cantons give out of their own funds. The catalogue 
 of grants and favours accorded would be a httle long to 
 enumerate here. But then the Swiss Governments con- 
 tented themselves with giving the money, and left the 
 management of the associations in members' own hands. 
 Other Governments did not possess the courage to act 
 with the same moderation. The Governments of Germany 
 and Austria expend a great deal of money in support of 
 breeding, but they also interfere not a little with its con- 
 duct, which is a mistake. And that is one reason why 
 outside Switzerland the one object attained, and indeed 
 only aimed at — a very useful one in itself — is the general 
 improvement of herds, not the improvement of the market 
 for breeders. Obviously, when compulsion is laid upon 
 parishes as such to provide bulls and boars at parish 
 expense for parish use, there can be httle inducement for 
 co-operation, nor can the best possible results be looked 
 for. People do not under such circumstances take care 
 to procure the best bull or the best boar. Nor are things 
 likely to be so attentively watched and checked. The 
 grants of £20 and £25 made freely for first outlay, recover- 
 able by easy instalments, in not a few cases altogether 
 free of interest, tempt to formal compUance, lest the 
 money should go a-begging; but the soul of the Swiss 
 institution is wanting. German Governments try to ensure 
 success by reserving to themselves, in return for the grant, 
 the right to select the breed to be kept, and also a general 
 supervision ; but this does not always achieve the desired 
 object. It does not necessarily make wiUing agents of the 
 persons subjected to such authority, nor lead them to 
 employ their own best judgment — which is in any case 
 the safest guide. The matter is scarcely mended where, in 
 the place of the Government, Chambers of Agriculture — ^^ 
 
212 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 which are in Germany bodies of very much larger functions 
 and prerogatives than our own — Agricultural Societies 
 and similar institutions take upon themselves the task 
 of directing and subsidising, in what must be admitted 
 to be a public-spirited way — even though in the matter 
 of finance, things are undoubtedly made easy for the people 
 led. Serving fees are mostly kept very low, at two marks 
 or even one mark a service. The authorities providing the 
 first outlay for the bull often leads to the questionable 
 practice of the keeper being allowed to pocket the fees. In 
 Belgium likewise, where syndicates, being supported by the 
 authorities, are in the habit of fixing serving fees very low, 
 often at as little as one franc — which may also be paid as 
 an annual subscription, including service by the bull — and 
 in some instances at nothing at all, keepers are often allowed 
 to pocket what fees there are, or else to recoup themselves 
 for their trouble and outlay by grazing their small flock 
 of sheep on members' stubbles and uncultivated lands or 
 fallows. It needs not be pointed out that this is very 
 false economy, under the effects of which the buUs, which 
 ■ought to be well kept, frequently suffer. Some German 
 Governments have issued very stringent regulations against 
 such abuse. Those issued by the Government of Bavaria 
 go into the minutest particulars, directing in detail how 
 the bull is to be fed, that its fodder is to include corn, not 
 to consist of " soft " fodder only. The rules in force in 
 Westphalia go so far as to direct that no cow (or sow, as 
 the case may be) is to be served except upon production 
 of a special permit from the Committee. The Bavarian 
 rules insist that the keeping of the bull must not be given 
 by tender to the lowest bidder, but entrusted to a person 
 chosen for his particular qualification. The German 
 Governments also in many cases cledm the supervision of 
 the keeping of the herdbook. 
 
 In Belgium likewise Government assistance as a 
 stimulating adjunct is distinctly in evidence. The State 
 
LIVE STOCK IMPROVEMENT. 213 
 
 a few years ago paid £800 a year towards the improvement 
 of cattle breeding; the " National Society," formed in 
 1890, contributed £4,000 more ; and the several provincial 
 Governments among them £16,000. In all probability 
 those grants have been increased since. Belgian breeders 
 have been wise in federating their societies to a few large 
 tmions. There are some 400 cattle breeding societies in 
 existence, which, after an attempt to improve the local 
 breeds by crossing with English sires, have generally 
 adopted the poUcy of improving the native breed out of 
 its own self. Complaints are, however, occasionally heard 
 of the " National Society " favouring in its prize-giving 
 form rather than 3rield of milk. In horse breeding the 
 Belgians have, under the auspices of the active and 
 resourceful Boerenhond, adopted the Danish system, which 
 appears to answer in Limbourg and Brabant. There are 
 also about 350 societies for improving the breed of goats, 
 with about 35,000 members and about 40,000 goats — 
 which figures sufficiently indicate that the societies are 
 composed of very small folk. The existence of some 
 twenty-five societies for improving the breed of rabbits — 
 in West Flanders — provides a distinct Belgian speciality 
 and promises benefit to ourselves. For we are the great 
 consumers of Belgian rabbits. In 1908 no fewer than 
 25,000 cases, holding 120 rabbits each — that is, three 
 millions in aU — were shipped from Belgium to London. 
 Denmark, as we know, was one of the first countries 
 to borrow the excellent institution of " Control Societies " 
 from Switzerland and put it to good use. As in Switzer- 
 land, Live Stock Improvement Societies in Denmark enjoy 
 pecuniary assistance from their Government, which con- 
 tributes on an average about 150 crovras (about £8) per 
 buU, as practically a pure gift. There is no condition 
 attached to it, except that the bull employed should be 
 at least twenty-one months old when first put to service. 
 
214 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 and have taken a prize at some show. In 1909 Denmark 
 numbered 1,260 Live Stock Improvement Associations for 
 cattle — 1,885 Live Stock Improvement Associations in 
 all — with 31,300 members and 1,464 bulls employed, 
 subsidised as has been stated. 
 
 The Netherlands Government bestows greater care 
 upon the selection of buUs. It makes grants varying 
 between 40 and 100 guilders in each case in aid of the 
 judging of bulls, which has to proceed through two stages. 
 In the first place there is an examination in one of the 
 115 places selected for the holding of local shows, and 
 afterwards in one of the nineteen places where larger 
 exhibitions take place. Associations compljang with the 
 Government regulations in respect of the choice of buUs 
 are allowed annual grants ranging from 50 to 100 guilders. 
 
 There is no need to extend the survey. There are 
 similar associations in more or less all continental coun- 
 tries, generally assisted by the Government. Italy, among 
 others, does a great deal for the improvement of its very 
 inferior herds by crossing with Swiss buUs, and also by 
 purchase of Swiss cows — ^both Simmenthal and Schwyz — 
 by co-operative action. However, even the method 
 adopted is more or less everywhere the same, the favourite 
 form being the keeping of improved buUs (or boars) in 
 common, recouping the outlay out of serving fees. There 
 can be no question that such procedure has done good in 
 improving breeds and increasing their value. But it is 
 all more or less — ^barring the Government grants — on the 
 lines of our own bull and boar societies, and does not rise 
 to the height of what is done in Switzerland and Denmark- 
 The " Co-operative Breeding Societies " of the United 
 States are of the same type. .Their members co-operate 
 for the keeping of a good bull, of some particular breed 
 which they endeavour to identify with the locahty. 
 
 One noteworthy result of foreign — and more specifi- 
 cally Swiss — co-operative cattle breeding has been, so 
 
LIVE STOCK IMPROVEMENT. 215 
 
 it may be interesting to note, the better regulation, and 
 in some cases the rehabihtation, of pasturage and more 
 particularly of mountain grazing. In Switzerland alpage 
 (alpeggio) is considered an absolutely indispensable feature 
 in cattle rearing. The prime inducement to it was of 
 course the existence of common lands (Allmend) on the 
 Alps, to the use of which parishioners had a right in their 
 several localities. However, since Live Stock Improve- 
 ment Associations have been formed, it has become usual 
 for such,, in compliance with Herr von Wattenwiel's urgent 
 recommendation, either to purchase, or else, at any rate, 
 to rent, Alpine pastures of their own. For without a 
 bite of Alpine herbage, and a whiff of Alpine air in their 
 young days, and a tread upon their free mountain turf, 
 Swiss breeds are found to deteriorate. Some of the 
 arrangements made for common use are primitive indeed. 
 Members just use the pasture in common, doing the 
 herding in turns, without troubling to inquire what 
 precise share in it each one is entitled to. In other arrange- 
 ments arithmetical ingenuity has been impressed into 
 service to elaborate a fuUy equitable distribution of both 
 expense and benefit. Under such arrangements as a 
 rule paid herdsmen are employed, and in some cases the 
 individual owners of cows are even forbidden to interfere 
 at aU with their own beasts while on alpage. The keep 
 is paid for by its owner at so much a beast, or else per 
 beast and age — a certain figure for a calf up to one year, 
 more in proportion for older animals. 
 
 The admirable effects of such mountain pasturing 
 upon growing cattle have caused grazing as an essential 
 feature in rearing to be adopted long since North of the 
 Alps — not merely in distinctly movmtainous country such 
 as the Black Forest and the Bavarian and Bohemian 
 Highlands (where of course it is of older date), and recently 
 also in Silesia (where the Giant Mountains provide what 
 
2i6 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 has been found a useful substitute for the Alps) ; but also 
 in less rugged country, where hitherto stall feeding has 
 been the rule, and a gambol in the yard was the utmost 
 in the way of exercise that a young beast cotild ever aspire 
 to— for instance, in Saxony. Everywhere now a point 
 is made of open pasturing. There are common pastures 
 of all sizes, from 40 and 50 acres up to 40,000. In Bavaria 
 it is very common to charge a fixed amount per beast, 
 say, from 20 to 30 marks for a seeison of no to 120 days. In 
 one case growing cattle are charged for at the rate of 15 
 marks per head, if under one year, and 20 marks beyond. 
 In another case there are three gradations, charged for 
 severally at the rate of 15, 20 and 25 marks. In some 
 instances the grazing money is calculated per live weight, 
 an animal up to 200 kilogrammes (about 40olbs.) pa5dng 
 32 marks, up to 300 kilogrammes 36 marks, up to 400 
 kilogrammes 42 marks, beyond 400 kilogrammes 48 marks, 
 .and specifically bulls up to 250 kilogrammes 70 marks, 
 and beyond that weight 80 marks. Thus it is in Wvirttem- 
 berg, and it should be noted that the lastnamed higher 
 charges expressly include a daily feed of com. There 
 are some charges higher still to be met with in Wurttem- 
 berg, and likewise in Baden. The Governments of both 
 countries contribute generously towards the upkeep of the 
 pastures. In not a few cases beasts turned out in this way 
 to common grazing are first made to undergo medical 
 examination by a veterinary surgeon and even to be 
 inoculated for tuberculosis. A few years ago the number 
 of pasturing societies stood in Germany at 85. It keeps 
 steadily increasing. 
 
 I am aware of only one society devoting itself to 
 collective mountain pasturing in these isles, and that is 
 one in the Scotch Highlands, embracing seven counties, 
 which include the Orkneys and Shetlands. It does not, 
 however — according to an account recently made pubhc 
 
LIVE STOCK IMPROVEMENT. 217 
 
 — appear to give entire satisfaction. The stock grazed 
 is said to be the property of well-to-do crofters. 
 
 To return to breeding and rearing proper, it need 
 scarcely be pointed out that the same co-operative method 
 of raising live stock may well be applied to other types 
 of animals besides neat stock. But it is to be questioned 
 if in our country quite the same interest will attach to 
 what has been done abroad in this way with respect to 
 horses, pigs, goats, and even rabbits. 
 
 Goat breeding is paid attention to in more countries 
 than one, and such attention appears well deserved. For 
 where there is insufficient keep for a cow, a goat, or two 
 or three goats, with their moderate requirements — coupled 
 indeed with a curious taste for variety, such as happily 
 the pubhc roadside will generally supply — make of them 
 a valuable substitute. Their milk, rich in sohds, and 
 particularly rich in nitrogenous constituents (and therefore 
 specially valuable for children) and their manageableness 
 should serve as noteworthy recommendations. And 
 there appears to be especial call in their case for 
 Co-operation. For, docile and meek and clean as the 
 nanny is — there is no foundation whatever for the 
 charge of " smell " — nobody who can help it would 
 care to burden himself singlehanded with the keeping 
 of a refractory, dirty and distinctly malodorous billy. 
 Breeding of course improves the yield of milk in a goat 
 as it does in a cow. 
 
 In Germany, goat breeding, as providing useful 
 hve stock for very smaU holdings, or else for small holdings 
 generally not very productive, on heath and forest land, 
 has come very much to the front. In the province of 
 Hanover alone there are now about 250 goat breeding 
 societies— in the place of only 15 fifteen years ago. Their 
 declared object is to breed goats of good build, yielding 
 ample milk- and hardy enough to thrive in a rough climate. 
 
2i8 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Two of these societies occupy " goat farms " of their own. 
 That at Schiittorf, comprising twelve acres, has attained 
 a certain degree of celebrity. Both biUies and nannies 
 there kept are of improved breed. The billies are of 
 course available for breeding outside the flock of the farm. 
 The covering fee used to be sixpence, but now stands at 
 a shilling. Members appear generally satisfied with the 
 results obtained. 
 
 In France the value of goat's milk consumed in the 
 year is estimated at 24,000,000 francs, as compared with 
 the 1,225,000,000 francs' worth of cows' milk and 3,000,000 
 francs worth of ewes'. 
 
 Goat breeding is also fairly common in Sweden and 
 gives satisfaction. In the northern provinces alone there 
 are now stated to be about 66,000 goats. 
 
 One may be thankful to see, also in this country, 
 the goat being paid greater attention to. Nevertheless, 
 it may be in point to recall to mind the old German 
 peasants' saw, which says : 
 
 " Sommerkorn und Ziegenmist 
 Lasst den Bauer wie er ist," 
 
 which means : the habitual use of spring wheat or rye 
 and of goats' dui% leaves the peasant no better off than 
 lie was before. A goat can, after all, count only as a 
 pis-aller. 
 
 It may be of greater interest to note that the co-opera- 
 tive method has rendered exceedingly good service on 
 the Continent in respect of horse breeding. In some 
 •cases, as for instance in Denmark and in France, it has 
 been turned to the same account as for cattle breeding 
 in Switzerland, namely to standardize particular breeds 
 and secure a better and stable market for them, thus 
 putting more money into breeders' pockets. In some 
 ■cases Co-operation has succeeded in inducing people to 
 improve their breeding where previously even very active 
 
LIVE STOCK IMPROVEMENT. 219 
 
 Government admonition and promises had failed. Thus 
 it has been in Switzerland, where Government measures 
 aimed at the production of useful cavalry mounts — -for 
 which purpose horses are examined on farms by cavalry 
 officers travelling from village to village — proved fruitless ; 
 but Co-operation, introduced in 1894, has scored a distinct 
 success. There are now no fewer than 53 co-operative 
 horse breeding associations in Switzerland, of which 31 
 breed draught horses and 22 saddle horses. 
 
 There is not a little co-operative horse breeding also 
 in France, and such breeding has been found useful in 
 standardizing breeds and thereby securing to them, by 
 reason of their uniformity, a dependable, improved market. 
 This effect has been particularly noticed in respect of the 
 grey Boulonnais breed, which is — though by reason of its 
 coat not liked in some foreign countries, as for instance in 
 the United States — highly valued at home — so much so that 
 it has been found necessary lately to extend the area 
 governed by its studbook. The societies act at the same 
 time as selling societies on behalf of their members, and 
 in that capacity transact a considerable business. 
 
 At Niort there is a sjmdicate for co-operatively rearing 
 mules, and another for breeding donkeys. 
 
 Denmark possessed in 1909 — the last year for which 
 I have figures — no fewer than 270 horse breeding societies, 
 €mplo5^ng collectively 312 stallions. These societies 
 are subsidised by the Government to the extent of 159,000 
 crowns (about £10,000) in the shape of grants up to the 
 value of one-tenth of the cost of keep of each stallion, up to 
 five years altogether, after which period its utiUty is 
 supposed to be gone. The maximum grant in respect 
 of one stallion is however limited to 4,000 crowns. And 
 the entire subsidy is made conditional upon the stallion 
 being weU kept and in good health. In addition the 
 Government gives a number of prizes at annual horse shows. 
 
220 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Co-operative pig breeding societies are plentiful ; 
 however their action is as a rule restricted to the common 
 purchase and employment of good boars. In Denmark, 
 conspicuous pig fattener that it is, there were in 1909. 
 no fewer than 253 co-operative pig rearing societies, em- 
 ploying among them 328 boars, and subventioned by the 
 Government to the extent of 16,000 crowns-^generally 
 speaking, 50 crowns per approved boar, which must be 
 either of Danish or else of the large Yorkshire breed. 
 
 There are also co-operative sheep breeding societies, 
 at any rate in Switzerland and in Denmark. Neither 
 of these countries is a genuinely sheep breeding or sheep 
 keeping country. But small flocks of sheep are employed to 
 graze off stubbles: In Denmark co-operative tup raising 
 and tup keeping is encouraged by the Government by 
 grants given at the rate of 50 crowns a tup. There were 
 in 1909 102 such societies in existence, employing 109 tups, 
 almost every one of them of some English breed. 
 
 In aU these societies the methods employed are cast 
 altogether on the same lines as in the cattle improvement 
 societies. The secret of the success obtained is the re- 
 gulation of the size of the society according to the powers 
 of the male animal or animals employed, and, beyond 
 that, the employment of sound experts, more particularly 
 on the examining committee, and of a trustworthy keeper 
 of the male animal, coupled with strict supervision and 
 an interest awakened among members in selecting the 
 best animals for continuing the breed, which is to be 
 accomplished by making them understand the gain which 
 that must bring to themselves. There is no resisting the 
 argument addressed to the pocket. 
 
 Against all this we have in this country for the present 
 only little to set, although there are some beginnings. 
 For our breeds — in which form and meat making are 
 as a rule most studied — provide, after all, rather luxuries 
 
LI]E STOCK IMPROVEMENT 221 
 
 for the rich than useful beasts for the small man. There 
 is many a small cottier who does not profit by them. We 
 have, however, attached to the Agricultural Organisa- 
 tion Society, several local associations which make it 
 their business to improve some local type of live stock, 
 but only by the provision of sires. Thus we have the 
 Leicester and Rutland Cattle Improvement Society, the 
 Lledrod Agricultural Society in Cardiganshire, likewise, 
 for cattle, the Tiverton Farmers' and Shire Horse Society, 
 the Tregaron Society (for the improvement of the breed 
 of pigs), the Vicar's Farm Society in Worcestershire,, 
 for the improvement of the breed of poultry. However, 
 one cannot help thinking that in some districts in the 
 United Kingdom there must be room for Co-operation 
 of the kind here spoken of, or let us say, for more systematic 
 Co-operation than there is already. We want to rise 
 above mere bull and boar societies. With our famous 
 breeds of all kinds of animals, recognised all over the 
 world, and sought after all the world over, one does not 
 see why we should not have breeding societies hke those 
 of Herr von ^^'attenwiel, and why, at any rate in the case 
 of neat stock, we should not develop the milking qualities 
 of our cows, as has been done abroad, by careful selection, 
 and by sifting and choosing, till we arrive at the attainable- 
 maximum. 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 XI.— CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 
 
 Insurance — which among smaller farmers in this 
 -country, is not yet nearly as much practised as in the 
 interest of their own safety is to be desired — from its very 
 nature lends itself remarkably well to co-operative methods, 
 provided that the safeguards which common business 
 prudence dictates, are properly observed. In very truth 
 Insurance was co-operative before it became commercial 
 or speculative. The first hail insurance societies were 
 co-operative, or mutual ; and so were the first live stock 
 insurance societies. And over a large portion of the 
 ■Continent rural fire insurance has grown up as " mutual " 
 business — ^though as a rule under Government compulsion 
 and Government supervision. The Prussian Feuersozieta- 
 ten, which date originally from shortly after the Thirty 
 Years' War, may be said to apply the co-operative principle 
 ■of Landschaften to insurance. They bind the landed 
 proprietors of a district in common liabiUty, out of which 
 to compensate any one of them who may suffer damage 
 by fire. These three forms of insurance deal with risks 
 against which Nature itself seems to suggest that there 
 should be protection by provident action, and accordingly 
 in respect of one of the three, at any rate, namely fire 
 which as early as in the days of Virgil was discovered 
 to affect the interests of neighbours, and therefore con- 
 ceivably cdso the interests of the entire local community 
 —Governments may be held to have been in the right 
 in interfering, as they have done in Germany, not only 
 making insurance compulsory, but even going the length 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 323 
 
 of prescribing the very co-operative method which — 
 at a time when Insurance Companies were not yet thought 
 of — provided the only actucd safeguard available. 
 
 Since then Insurance has become pretty general. 
 And self-interest has prompted people to take advantage 
 ireely of the ample opportunities furnished to them, in 
 the main by speculative Joint Stock Companies, of 
 insuring against a great variety of risks — at a fixed charge, 
 which condition is found a decided convenience. How- 
 ever such convenience has to be purchased at a price — 
 the price of the absorption of what at first glance appears 
 a monstrously disproportionate portion of the premiums 
 paid, in managing expenses. And subsequent wranglings 
 over the amount of damage to be compensated are not 
 altogether unknown, nor are they unaccountable under an 
 arrangement which places two antagonistic interests into 
 juxtaposition — that of the insurer, whose object naturally 
 is to secure the highest possible amount of profit out 
 of the insured, and that of the insured, who as naturally 
 endeavours to obtain the most valuable quidproquo that 
 Jie can for his premium. 
 
 AU these things considered, it is not surprising that 
 agriculturists should have turned their thoughts to the 
 subject of co-operative insurance as a matter of economy, 
 and that Governments — having, for one reason or another, 
 agriculturists' interests at heart — should have supported 
 their aspirations by measures which were doubtless 
 intended to be helpful, but which in some instances, so it 
 must be objected, have been carried a little too far. 
 
 A case well illustrating such evolution from accountable 
 •dissatisfaction to success secured by independent action 
 is that of Hungary. It is not the only one that might be 
 quoted. The Hungarians never thought of co-operative 
 insurance till in 1897 and 1898 the insurance companies, 
 complaining of unsatisfactory results, suddenly raised 
 
224 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 the premiums charged for hail insurance by loo per cent. 
 Resenting this — which they considered an imposition — 
 the Hungarian farmers, who had been well taught co-opera- 
 tive methods in many things by the late Count Alexander 
 Karolyi (as they have been since by his successor in of&ce 
 Count ]\Iailath), at once proposed to turn self insurers. 
 The Government, always ready to help agriculturists 
 with taxpayers' money, promised 400,000 crowns towards- 
 the venture, provided that at least 1,000,000 crowns was 
 subscribed otherwise. And since as much as 1,300,000 
 crowns was in this way raised in little time, the new 
 society began operations with 1,700,000 crowns share 
 capital, which capital has been since increased to 1,981,360- 
 crowns. The value insured by the society thus amply 
 provided with funds in 1910 amounted to 757,985,407 
 crowns fire risks, 54,095,929 crowns hail risks, and 
 9,796,000 crowns life risks, and its annual receipts in 
 premiums now figure at close upon 5,000,000 crowns. 
 
 The factors which Co-operation can bring to the 
 accomplishment of the task which it sets itself in dealing- 
 with Insurance are two. 
 
 The first such factor is that of numbers. A hundred 
 thousand persons offering to be insured can obtain con- 
 siderably better terms for each of them than one coming- 
 by himself. Where there are large numbers to act in 
 concert, these may either proceed, as the Hungarian 
 agriculturists just spoken of have done, and as our in- 
 dustrial co-operators are doing in their excellent " Co-opera- 
 tive Insurance Society," that is, organise their own 
 co-operative — or what must be pronounced to be rather a 
 " mutuaUst " than a fully " co-operative " — society ; or 
 else they may make collective terms with some powerful 
 capitalist insurance company which, in consideration of 
 their numbers, may be counted upon to quote them 
 lo\\er premiums than to the general pubhc. The last- 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 225 
 
 named is the plan upon which the great agricultural 
 co-operative unions of Germany and of some other con- 
 tinental countries have elected to proceed. And this 
 plan has, in Germanjs, been carried so far that powerful 
 unions are allowed to enter into agreements with several 
 Insurance Companies at the same time, thus giving their 
 inembers the option of insuring with one or the other, 
 as they may prefer, and have also had terms conceded 
 for entire parishes, being once more lower than those for 
 individuals. The enormous force of numbers at the 
 back of a great union enables it to obtain in this matter 
 the very best terms attainable and, in a fluctuating market, 
 at all times to place members at the most advantageous 
 point conceded at all to the public. This method has 
 its great merits. It avoids the trouble of organisation 
 and safely eludes the difficulty of which unfortunately 
 a good many among ourselves, in this country, will not 
 take sufficient account, but which is a most important 
 consideration — namely, the difficulty of providing an ample 
 capital of guarantee to meet all claims that may arise. 
 The co-operative principle resorted to under this particular 
 method may be looked upon as generically of a piece with 
 that which Co-operation presents when acting for dis- 
 tribution. The mischief is that its advantages do not yet 
 present themselves in their most alluring shape to ourselves 
 in the United Kingdom, inasmuch as we have not yet, 
 in Agricultural Co-operation, the " big battaUons " of 
 foreign agricultural unions to bring to the engagement. 
 
 The other factor which Co-operation can bring to 
 bear upon the problem — appljring rather the co-operative 
 principle generally associated with co-operative produc- 
 tion—is that of localised control: getting rid of the 
 middleman, doing one's own administration gratuitously 
 or very cheaply by minute " dividing down," watching 
 the insured, and checking the valuation, aU of this with 
 
226 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 intimate local knowledge. The effect of all this, supposing" 
 that it is properly carried out, is, in the first place, a con- 
 siderable economy in expenditure, both of management 
 and of compensation, and a seriotte diminution of risks, 
 because the objects insured are perpetually imder the- 
 eyes of those who know aU about them and who are 
 directly interested in the avoidance of damage. To quote 
 one instance, from home, illustrating this, our Co-opera- 
 tive Cow Insurance Societies manage to insure — as is- 
 shown in the Journal of the Board of Agriculture for May, 
 1912 — a cow for 5s. or 6s. a year (producing a good balance^ 
 sheet), for which Joint Stock Insurance Companies would 
 charge — and have to charge — 15s. The principal reason 
 accounting for this is that in Insurance Companies the 
 loss to be made good averages 6 per cent., whereas in 
 Co-operative Societies it averages only a httle over 2 per 
 cent. 
 
 Agriculturists may take their choice of either of the two- 
 methods shown to be placed before them, according to the 
 pecuhar circumstances of their own case. Our friends in 
 Ireland have thus far decided in favour of the second, 
 aUke for fire and for working men's insurance, contracting 
 with a company, in the case of working men's insurance 
 with the Co-operative Insurance Society — Uke the Germans, 
 who have carried economy in the matter very far, though 
 without displacing some thousands of smaU local societies 
 of co-operative self-insurers of hve stock. Also in Scandi- 
 navia this method is common. And the Belgian Boerenbond 
 has a standing arrangement with our Norwich Union. 
 The method is useful for fire insurance, and more particu- 
 larly to be recommended for insurance against hail (the 
 risks of which are very considerable) and for hfe insurance 
 (which requires large capitals), not to speak of fideUty, 
 burglary, glass and the other minor forms of insurance, 
 which are better dealt with by a company — although. 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 22r 
 
 it deserves to be mentioned that our (industrial) Co-opera- 
 tive Insurance Society at Manchester has found fidelity- 
 insurance under its own pecuUar circumstances highly 
 profitable, to the extent of covering, during the first 
 fourteen years of its existence— before the safeguard 
 now practised in fire insurance came to be adopted — the 
 losses then occurring in fire insurance. The main requisite 
 for insurance by contract is numbers. 
 
 The first named method, that adopted by the 
 Hungarians and our industrial co-operators, has been 
 apphed to hail and Ufe, as well as to fire and Kve stock, for 
 both of which latter it is, under appropriate circumstances^ 
 exceedingly well suited. Its main requisite condition is or- 
 ganisation, though it cannot do without capital, and it 
 ought to take care not to extend its liabilities beyond what 
 it can answer for, so that it will require to supplement its 
 own direct local action by federation or reinsurance. 
 This method has abroad achieved some genuine successes. 
 But it is, as has been already stated, rather " mutual " 
 than fully " co-operative," inasmuch as there is centraUsed 
 management, in which the bulk of the members take 
 no part. It presupposes numbers as well as good organisa- 
 tion and very judicious handhng of the risks insured, lest 
 the means at its disposal should prove inadequate. The form 
 of insurance to which this method was first applied, is that 
 of insurance of live stock. In the course of time it has in 
 its development been carried very much farther — but what 
 actually first prompted it was the risk to which the small 
 owner of one or a few cows or pigs found himself 
 exposed. That cow or that pig was his main breadwinner. 
 It stood to him for a substantial capital. But it was at the 
 mercy of any untoward accident. In the large fanner's 
 herd or flock the risk became equaUsed and reduced to 
 an average, but to the small man it represented a serious 
 danger. 
 
228 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 In this form of insurance the Danes claim, since a 
 long time back, to have been the first in the field, centuries 
 ago. Our own first registered society, that of Ormskirk in 
 Lancashire, dates from 1807. The small peasantry of 
 pretty well every country have — like our own small folk 
 combining to their cow and pig clubs — sought to secure 
 themselves against unlooked for mortality by joining 
 together and engaging to share in common the cost of any 
 particular member's loss of a beast, each man contributing 
 his own share, of which the immediate loser's is as a rule 
 the heaviest, averaging from twenty to twenty-five per 
 cent. — in our country as a rule twenty-five per cent., since 
 the Club refunds 15 shillings in the £ — but in some cases 
 abroad up to fifty per cent. In this country only some of 
 the pig clubs allow the fuU value of the animal. The govern- 
 ing idea is a thoroughly co-operative one, although at first 
 only rudimentarily carried out ; upon a loss occurring 
 a levy is made, each member contributing equally — as 
 a rule per animal insured — so as not fully to repair, but 
 only to mitigate the loss to the victim, who is thus left 
 with quite enough reason to avoid such losses as well 
 as he can. 
 
 Generally speaking it appears preferable that insurance 
 should be confined to one species only of animals ; but 
 obviously there will be cases in which provision may be 
 made for more than one. 
 
 We ourselves have one " horse and cow club " and two ' 
 " horse clubs" pure and simple. One of our horse clubs, 
 that of Newark, registered since 1898 as a Joint Stock 
 Company — which form of registration secures to it the 
 privilege of paying income tax upon its annual overplus — 
 has been rendering useful service since 1840. It insures 
 horses according to their estimated market value, at 
 graduated rates — 2s. 2d. a quarter for a horse valued 
 at £y los. ; 5s. gd. for one valued at £20 ; 17s. 6d. for one 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 229 
 
 up to £60 ; and special rates for more expensive animals ; 
 giving in return free veterinary attendance and medicine 
 within a radius of eight miles, and two thirds of the value 
 in the event of death. And members appear satisfied with it . 
 Abroad, co-operative or mutual insurance of horses is 
 very common. Denmark, which is also to the fore in 
 co-operative horse breeding, has about 1,400 small mutual 
 associations (parish societies) for such purpose, in which 
 losses are shared by all members, each contributing 
 pro rata of his own insurance. Holland has about 400 
 co-operative horse insurance societies, insuring among them 
 about 60,000 horses. Belgium has about 200 societies 
 and 40,000 animals. In Switzerland, where cantonal 
 Governments and the Federation help Uberally to provide 
 for the insurance of neat stock — contributing in 1906 
 £24,510 out of the £78,712 paid in compensation — the 
 co-operative method is by preference applied to horses. 
 Horse insurance societies are in that country numerous 
 and financially strong. Their method of insurance has 
 some special features. Compensation is in some of 
 the societies carried up to as much as 95 per 
 cent, of the value, which is preferably declared at 
 its full. Experience has shown that it is not among 
 high-priced horses that greatest mortality occurs but, 
 on the contrary, among animals of small value— the 
 high-priced ones presumably being more carefuUy looked 
 after. Hence the poHcy first pvirsued by the Government 
 of discouraging high declarations has been advisedly 
 abandoned. Premiums run a little higher in proportion 
 for horses than for cattle. In Belgium — where the 
 law makes it obligatory that horses and donkeys shall 
 be insured, as well as cows— Co-operation ministers 
 to the insurance of the lower form of fuU-hoofed animals. 
 The co-operative insurance of beasts in Germany by the 
 .same means has already been referred to. 
 
230 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Abroad, likewise, insurance of goats is very general. 
 The goat is there prized as a valuable einimal. Belgium 
 numbers about 400 goat insurance societies, insuring 
 goats at the rate of 5d. for 8s. to 12s. value of the animal, 
 sheep being insured in the same proportion, that is, at 
 lod. for i6s. to 24s. value. Holland numbers 50 to 6& 
 goat societies, which also insure sheep, with about 3,000 
 members and 6,000 animals insured. 
 
 Many of the clubs spoken of are still maintained in 
 their primitive simplicity, more particularly among our- 
 selves and in Denmark. In our own — as in a country 
 in which people trust not a little to fairness and common 
 sense among themselves — the rules are generally speaking 
 very simple, but are found sufficient. Abroad a great 
 many limitations and regulations have been introduced,, 
 to insure that the working shsdl be equitable. 
 
 The first consideration presenting itself in such cases 
 is that of size and area. 
 
 The object of the organisation is to make management 
 cheap and simple, and the insurance practised subject 
 to easy control. Abroad, more particularly, people are 
 anxious that the insured animals should be always under 
 the society's eye. Accordingly, although undoubtedly 
 there is an advantage in numbers, the area is, as a nile, 
 made compact and readily manageable, and the number 
 of beasts insured is kept down. Only in the Scandinavian 
 kingdoms, where the Governments supervise the insurance, 
 — which interference in every case tends towards the 
 same regrettable result of lessening the sense of responsi- 
 bility — society districts are sometimes large, extending 
 over a whole province, even the whole kingdom, and the 
 herds insured number by hundreds and even thousands. 
 One or two such very comprehensive organisations will be 
 specially called attention to. The Norwegian Government^ 
 which greatly interests itself in mutual live stock insurance; 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 231 
 
 disadvises the formation of independent societies where 
 there are not at least 50 to 100 horses or 200 to 300 cows 
 to be insured. It was the Governments of those countries 
 which encouraged society formation — rather " mutual " 
 than bona fide " co-operative " — on a large scale, as more 
 fully equalizing conditions. However, more particularly 
 in Norway, results have declared entirely in favour of 
 the small local and genuinely co-operative societies, in 
 which, on an average, losses have been smallest. In 
 France, which is foremost in this kind of insurance, towards 
 which the State does not stint its questionable assistance, 
 societies average about 55 members, and cover in each 
 case a commune only. So it is also in Belgium. And in our 
 own cow and pig clubs — though we have one comprising 
 close upon 300 members — the membership generally 
 ranges between 20 and 70. This is not a fortuitous cir- 
 cumstance. Common sense has taught the insurers that 
 under Co-operation of this type the district must bB small, 
 in order that management, being locally given gratuitously,, 
 may not enter largely into the account, and that control 
 may be effective. 
 
 Admission is by election, which in our own case, 
 coupled with very great strictness practised in respect 
 of comphance with the rules Iciid down — on pain of for- 
 feiture of benefits — is found a sufficient safeguard. There 
 is a difference of opinion as to whether it is advisable to 
 limit the number of one man's animals to be insured. Our 
 own cow and pig clubs appear jealous of allowing a man to 
 obtain an excessive claim, and accordingly limit the 
 number of animals to be accepted for insurance from one 
 man — although in such manner as to provide for practically 
 all that a small man is hkely to require, for instance, up to 
 three or four pigs. But there are cases in which members 
 have been permitted to insure up to six cows each. The 
 general rule, however, is one or two. At the same time 
 
232 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 they £ilso limit the insurance value of animals, lest the 
 death of a particularly high priced animal should involve 
 the society in too heavy a loss. Abroad many societies take 
 a diametrically opposite course, stipulating that every 
 member should insure every head of cattle or every pig 
 that he possesses ; and in Switzerland, more particularly, 
 they advisedly charge the levy made per head, regardless 
 of the value of the animal, in order that members may 
 keep as highly bred animals as possible, since there is 
 distinct economy in this, seeing that the £ioo beast taxes 
 their pocket no more than does the £10. 
 
 As a matter of course every animal entered for insurance 
 is carefully examined — in this country by the " marker," 
 whose office it is to " mark " accepted animals by branding 
 them on a horn or on the right forefoot (pigs on an ear), 
 and who is selected for his post as being known as an 
 experienced cow or pig keeper, so that his examination 
 is as a rule found sufficient. No animal showing any 
 signs of disease is accepted, nor '-sye animals below or 
 beyond a regulation age fixed. Should the marker see 
 cause to doubt the health of any animal offered for insur- 
 ance, he is bound to refer the matter to the " valuing 
 committee," which consists of three members selected 
 for their fitness, two forming a quorum, and whose decision 
 is final. There is a small fee payable for such examination 
 and "mcirking." 
 
 Insurance societies abroad do not, so to put it, pay 
 any greater attention than ours to the avoidance of risks 
 of casualties, but they evidence their anxiety by more 
 searching watchfulness. They have very precise rules 
 about the causes of death which entitle to compensation, 
 drawing the limits very narrowly, and suggesting supple- 
 mentary insurance for a variety of casualties. As a 
 matter of course epidemics are excluded from habihty 
 falling upon societies, as being a matter rather for the 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 233 
 
 community to deal with on public groimds. Death by 
 glanders, tuberculosis and similar diseases is generally 
 excluded abroad ; also death by miscarriage — or else 
 liability for compensation is limited to the first or the 
 first two miscarriages only. So is, in Germany, death 
 in the course of conveyeince from one place to another, 
 or in taking to market, and also death due to the fault 
 or the negligence of the owner of a beast or of his servant. 
 A distinct kind of insurance — now also clamoured for 
 in France — ^is in use in Germany for death by order of 
 the meat inspector, provided that the animal condemned 
 by him appeared ^nwa/acie sound before the examination. 
 Death on alpage, or generally in the course of mountain 
 pasturing, is likewise disallowed — and specifically in 
 Belgium death by hghtning or in the course of war or 
 public disturbance. In Sardinia, on the other hand, 
 where primitive conditions prevail, death by violence, 
 or loss of animals by theft or by, houghing, is allowed to 
 estabUsh a good claim to compensation. 
 
 A method of insurance — rather " mutual " than 
 " co-operative " — very popular in Sweden and Denmark, 
 similar also to what is practised in Hungary — may be held 
 to merit special mention. The Swedish society frankly 
 calls itself a " Company." Responsibility in it attaches 
 to each member. But the management is centralised. 
 The Company insures over aU the kingdom in four different 
 ways — by simple insurance per animal, providing com- 
 pensation for the full value insured ; by " combined " 
 insurance, for several animals at once ; by " collective " 
 insurance, en masse, i.e., of the entire number ; and by in- 
 surance specifically against contagious diseases and loss 
 of milk. There are a variety of special conditions. Bulls, 
 cows and calves must be insured collectively ; but bullocks 
 may be carried to a separate accoimt. The insurance 
 value of horses is automatically raised up to the fourth 
 
234 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 year and automatically reduced after ten for cart horses, 
 and after twelve for others. Similarly the compensation 
 value of cows is reduced by 15 per cent, every year after 
 eight. There is no compensation for death caused by 
 tuberculosis. 
 
 The conditions in Danish " mutual " insurance 
 societies, of which there are a number, carrying on 
 business aU over the kingdom, are similar. One society, 
 " Kustos," insures the whole stock on a farm in one lot. 
 If only one animal should die during the year, its loss is com- 
 pensated at only 40 per cent, of its value, but for the second 
 and subsequent anirrials 80 per cent, is paid. Another 
 society, " Pan," acts also as a reinsurance society. The 
 " Kreaturforsikrings Forening" insures against everjrthing 
 €xcept cattle plague, but charges 2 per cent, more, that is, 
 5 per cent, of the value, for inclusion of tuberculosis. Com- 
 pensation is rather lower than in most other countries, 
 namely, only two-thirds of the ascertained value. And 
 mortality amounts on an average to about 3 per cent., which 
 figure, although wholly on a par with our own, contrasts 
 rather favourably with that recorded for some parts of 
 Germany, which reaches nearly 3.50 per cent. There were 
 in 1906 28,723 members, insuring among them 257,815 
 head of cattle. 
 
 Any casualty occurring, and coming within the 
 limits of the insurance practised, has of course above all 
 things to be proved. In our cow and pig clubs the owner 
 of the animal is required to advise the secretary at once, 
 who in his turn advises the valuing committee, which 
 assesses the damages. In our clubs, provided that the 
 owner of the animal accepts such valuation, the settled 
 percentage of the value (as a rule 15s. in the £) becomes 
 due to him at once ; but the animal becomes the property 
 of the club, to do with as it may please. The valuation 
 is based upon the assumed value of the animal before it 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 235 
 
 fell ill or had cin accident.' Death by contagious disease 
 does not inveilidate the insurance, but involves cin obliga- 
 tion upon the victim of a casualty to disinfect at once 
 his stable or shed and also the adjoining buildings, failing 
 which his insurance lapses. 
 
 Abroad the course adopted is very similar. Animals 
 are valued, supervised, paid for and taken over by the 
 Society — often enough to be slaughtered for sale as meat, 
 wherever circumstances permit, and the value realised 
 is taken into account. Members must not kill their own 
 animals, but leave that to the society. In some cases 
 members of a society are required to take a certain quan- 
 tity of meat of the slaughtered animal, proportioned to 
 the number of beasts insured by themselves, off the society's 
 hands at a fixed price, which purchase constitutes their 
 contribution towards compensation. However, abroad 
 the whole matter is complicated by the assistance which 
 Governments make a point of giving, in the supposed 
 interest of the governed, coupled with interference and 
 dictation, which is the price to be psdd for such deceptive 
 assistance. The motive for all such interference and 
 assistance is impatience to see the benefits which co-opera- 
 tive — or " mutual," as it is really more correctly termed 
 in France — insurance, extended over the whole of the 
 agricultural population, which population is habitually 
 slow to take advantage of opportunities opened to it. 
 
 It is this same motive which recently led our Board 
 of Agriculture to offer pecuniary assistance to co-operative 
 hve stock insurance societies, though the healthy financial 
 condition of what few registered cow, pig, or horse clubs 
 we now possess — far too few in number, unfortunately — 
 shows that, once people are made to understand the benefits 
 offered by insurance, money is forthcoming in quite 
 suf&cient quantity. What, accordingly, is needed is 
 not the schoolboy's loUypop to make him do his exercise. 
 
236 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 but instruction to show how he is to master it. Abroad 
 practically only the Government of the Netherlands fails 
 to interfere with its live stock owners in the matter of 
 insurance. In Belgium the Government opens its purse wide 
 and supervises searchingly. But there is no compulsion 
 except in West Flanders. Elsewhere the active propa- 
 ganda carried on by the Boerenhond has led the authorities- 
 to desist from the proposed compulsory measures. How- 
 ever, the little societies — about a thousand in number, 
 for cattle only, and very much in the tough in the way 
 of organisation, and unregistered to boot — are understood 
 to answer well.* 
 
 In Germany and Austria State interference is rampant. 
 Special favours paid for by the taxpayer are conferred 
 with fairly lavish hand, but in return the inspectors 
 controlling are everywhere in evidence. Insurance is 
 made obhgatory. The Swiss Governments also assist, 
 but without seriously interfering. They leave societies to 
 manage their own affairs, and content themselves with lay- 
 ing down general rules, inspecting and paying subventions. 
 Their benefactions are confined to cows cuid pigs. How- 
 ever, horse insurance societies do just as well without 
 Government assistance. 
 
 *The following figures referring to the year 1906 are taken 
 
 from the Bulletin de l' Administration de V Agriculture : 
 
 
 Number of 
 
 Number of 
 
 Number of .„^ . 
 
 Animals ^v^ufF 
 
 Number of 
 Animals 
 
 Societies. 
 
 Members. 
 
 Lost 
 in 1908. 
 
 
 
 i s. d. 
 
 
 Cattle .. .. 981 
 
 88,723 
 
 257,815 13 12 
 
 6,498 
 
 Farm Horses . . 1 70 
 
 20,441 
 
 38,266 34 
 
 1.037 
 
 Stallions . . 4 
 
 541 
 
 714 136 
 
 18 
 
 Goats . . 232 
 
 23,232 
 
 35,184 17 
 
 2,358 
 
 Pigs . . . . 42 
 
 4,109 
 
 4,109 3 12 
 
 376 
 
 The figures for the following year show an advance in the 
 number of societies from 1,431 to 1,622 in all, viz., 1,023 cattle 
 insurance societies, 191 horse, 349 goat, and 59 pig. 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 231 
 
 To return to the general consideration of the organisa- 
 tion of a co-operative insurance society, it remains to deal 
 with the ver}' important point of raising the requisite 
 funds. There are three methods practicable and actually 
 in use. 
 
 In the first place, funds may be raised by a levy 
 covering the more or less varying actual expenditure 
 incurred, after the event. This is sometimes extolled 
 as " the most co-operative " of the three methods, inas- 
 much as it deals only with expenditure actually incurred 
 and simply distributes the burden, making the member 
 receiving compensation bear his own proper share. It 
 however labours under this disadvantage, that under it 
 there is no ready cash to pay out and that accordingly, 
 since levies cannot as a rule be made at frequent intervals 
 — although such practice actually prevails in some societies 
 in Switzerland — the loser of the animal is hkely to be 
 kept a long time out of his money. 
 
 An expedient for meeting this difficulty has been 
 devised in some countries by means of credit, the money 
 required during the year being raised by loan. But thi& 
 is not everywhere practicable and it adds to the expense. 
 Hence the method is not generally in favour. 
 
 In the second place, a society may proceed for all 
 things hke an ordinary joint stock company, levying 
 a fixed premium. That has its convenience ; but it 
 gives rise to this practical difficulty that under such scheme 
 the money accumulated for compensation may prove 
 insufiicient. The case has indeed not infrequently occurred 
 of the compensation allowed having for this reason to 
 be reduced below its normal cind bargained-for point, 
 even down to 10 per cent., instead of the 80 per cent, 
 stipulated for. It is impossible for a co-operative society 
 to ccdculate in advance a rate of premium hkely to prove 
 sufficient. Mortality, so it is true, has been ascertained 
 
238 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 to figure in ordinary years generally at three per cent. 
 But there are exceptional years ; and even in ordinary 
 years such figure does not apply to societies individually, 
 but stands for the average for the whole country, and in 
 single societies there are great fluctuations. A joint 
 stock company in its own interest takes a httle more than 
 will be required and pockets the difference as gain. A co- 
 operative society may not care to do this. Under this method 
 — and to some extent under the one still to be discussed 
 — a subsidiary question arises: — Should the subscription 
 asked for be proportioned to the number of animals insured 
 or to their value ? The latter appears the more businessUke 
 course. However in Switzerland — the example of which, 
 herd-keeping country that it is, ought to count for some- 
 thing in this matter — the levy per head is frequently 
 preferred on account of its simplicity. It does away with 
 the necessity of valuation on entry of the animal and 
 also simplifies accounts. And it is urged in addition, 
 as has been already stated, that it presents an inducement 
 for the improvement of the breed, inasmuch as insurance 
 becomes practically cheaper the greater is the value 
 of the animal insured. 
 
 On these grounds the third method — which appears 
 to be most in favour with our own cow and pig clubs, 
 to be met with mainly in Lincolnshire, but also in Derby- 
 shire, Northumberland, and Cornwall — seems the most 
 advisable, namely, that of levying a fixed subscription, 
 to keep the society in cash, with liability attached to it to 
 pay an additional levy after the event, should occasion 
 require it. Under this system our cow and pig clubs — 
 so far as there is a record of their business — thanks to 
 their provident action find themselves quite sufficiently 
 in funds to meet occurring calls. Indeed, they keep a 
 fair amount of money over, which shows that they have 
 fixed the regular subscription rather above the point 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 239 
 
 that may be held strictly needful. However, no one seems 
 to grudge the money. And this is a complete answer 
 to the urgings of those foreign administrators who insist 
 that smaU owners of hve stock are not to be prevailed 
 -upon to pay the full amount of the co-operative substitute 
 for a premium, and that accordmgly pubhc bodies must 
 come to their aid with money raised from taxpayers, who 
 have no earthly concern with the small owner's cows 
 and pigs. 
 
 The method of our cow, pig, and horse clubs — all 
 of which are financially absolutely dependent upon them- 
 selves (except that in some cases honorary members supply 
 the questionable help of dole-subscription)— are very 
 simple. There are, unfortunately, not many figures 
 available, because most of the societies appear to be 
 unregistered.* The registered ones, so far as they survive, 
 appear strong in funds, having (in 1905, which is the date 
 of the latest returns), as regards pig clubs (for which 
 £20 to £30 is considered sufficient), £120 to £140 in hand, 
 and as regards cow clubs more, up to £600 to £800, and 
 in one case even £1,440. There were at that time 61 
 clubs furnishing returns, 23 of them being cow clubs only, 
 32 pig clubs only, 2 horse clubs only, 3 horse and cow 
 and I a cow and pig club combined. Membership is as a 
 rule limited, ranging from 20 to 80. But there is one cow 
 club in Shropshire with 296 members. Members are, 
 as has been already explained, elected contemporaneously 
 with the admission of their animals, after examination 
 by the " marker," or the " marker " and the valuing 
 committee — a small fee, as a rule 6d. per cow and 3d. per 
 pig, being payable for the " marking." There is as a rule 
 
 *There were in 1905 1,021 pig clubs known to be in existence; 
 but only 58 of these were registered. Fifty-three of them returned 
 a membership of 3,457, and ;£i,788 total receipts, against /i,442 
 total outgoings. 
 
24© CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 an entrance fee payable, in cow clubs of 2s. 6d. for the- 
 first cow and is. for each succeeding one, in addition to 
 6s. annual subscription, payable by quarterly instalments ; 
 and in pig clubs is. entrance fee for each pig and id. a 
 week per pig subscription. Sucking pigs are" not admitted 
 at all ; and a heavier fee, generally double the ordinary 
 premium, is payable for breeding sows cuid boar pigs. 
 Compensation is allowed as a rule at the rate of 15s. in 
 the £. The value of cows insured is stated generally to- 
 fluctuate between ^^12 and £23. 
 
 Our little live stock clubs then appear to be on a 
 healthy footing, and there can be no doubt that they 
 have mitigated many a loss to small cow and pig keepers. 
 Their value to small cow-keepers, of whom the societies 
 are made up, must be apparent from the fact that individual 
 members have, in more cases than one, received com- 
 pensation within a comparatively short time for as many 
 as four animals. The pity is that there are so few of 
 them. And another pity is that they remain in isolation, 
 which must in the long run mean weakness. If the 
 practice of insurance is to be extended, it wiU be necessary 
 that there should be either federation or re-insurance, 
 and in my humble opinion our Board of Agriculture would 
 do far better to employ its influence and such money as 
 it feels called upon to expend in promoting joint action 
 among local clubs or else re-insurance — ^upon which 
 German and Austrian Governments advisedly more or 
 less concentrate their assisting action — than in offering 
 petty doles to local clubs, after the example of the French 
 Government.* And this because it ought not to be difficult 
 to persuade people to form local societies by simple teaching 
 and exhortation, whereas combining them into unions 
 or providing sufficiently strong institutions for re-insurance 
 
 *The Government Bill of 191 1 providing for this in our 
 country has for the time been withdrawn. 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 241 
 
 undoubtedly presents some difficulties and requires to be 
 taken up over an extended area, and accordingly with 
 some influence to back up the suggestion. Of the value, 
 even the necessity, of carr5^ng combination up to a higher 
 level there can be no doubt. The quinquennia] returns 
 of our cow and pig clubs teach an impressive lesson on 
 this point. Thoroughly well as some little tested clubs 
 have done, others have gone down quickly for want of 
 -additional support in trying times. Again, in France 
 it has been calculated that in the Department of the 
 Yonne, subscriptions of 1.66 per cent, per cow and 2.64 
 per cent, per horse, in societies working in isolation, 
 might have been reduced to .96 and 1.32 per cent., if there 
 had been federation. That example illustrates the differ- 
 ence between Co-operation applied purely locally and 
 Co-operation carried further. 
 
 The most systematic attempt to organise live stock 
 insurance in several grades, and on a national basis, 
 is that upon which the French Government, not without 
 jeason, not a little prides itself. The disfiguring feature 
 about it is that it is to so large an extent the result of State 
 pressure and State subvention. Provided that certain 
 -conditions are compUed with, to keep the scheme " mutual," 
 Ihe French Government pays £20 towards the formation 
 •of each local insurance society, with additional assistance 
 (never falling below £4) to foUow, at the discretion of the 
 Government, in exceptionally bad years. If the first 
 kind of assistance offered is questionable, as leading people 
 to believe that they are rather obliging the bountiful 
 taxpayer than providently studying their own interest, 
 the second seems absolutely vicious, because it leads 
 people to misunderstand the principles of insurance and 
 ■disregard actuarial foresight. Such criticism is supported 
 by the fact that the money thus far contributed by the 
 State has gone mainly to the reserve funds. A little 
 
242 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 more subscription or a little more federation, would there- 
 fore have made State aid superfluous altogether. 
 
 The conditions imposed by the Government, under a 
 law to entitle societies to State aid, are these. The 
 services given by officers of the society must be unremunera- 
 ted ; there must be no funds shared out among members ; 
 the premium or subscription levied must not fall below 
 I per cent, of the value of the beast if a cow, nor of ij per 
 cent, if a horse ; and compensation must not exceed 
 80 per cent, of such value. Provided that these conditions 
 are complied with, in addition to receiving the Government . 
 assistance already mentioned, societies are exempted 
 from every kind of taxation, stamps or fees. 
 
 Under such fostering treatment something hke 8,500 
 local societies have come to be formed. And they are 
 reported to be doing well in the main. There is no pressure 
 used to make them combine. Accordingly there are not 
 a few societies still relying upon their own resources alone 
 — like those in the Yonne already spoken of. But the 
 majority have combined to about sixty regional societies, 
 re-insuring risks. In addition there are two moderately 
 large re-insurance companies, the services of which are, 
 however, not found sufficient for the large host of village 
 societies existing. Accordingly the Government has a 
 mecisure now on the stocks which is to create a "National " 
 Re-insurance Society, designed to act as the coping 
 stone of all, endowed with 1,800,000 francs of taxpayers' 
 money and drawing in addition an annual allowance of 
 300,000 francs. 
 
 Barring the rather heavy draft made upon taxpayers' 
 money, this seems the correct way of organisation. There 
 is opposition, of course, to the newly proposed expenditure. 
 It is urged that, at any rate before the taxpayers are asked 
 to provide for farmers, proof should be furnished that 
 farmers will not or cannot act for themselves. But in 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 245 
 
 the present temper of the nation it is to be anticipated 
 that such opposition will be overridden. 
 
 Another form of insurance to which Co-operation 
 was early applied is that against haO. However results 
 have not favoured the co-operative method. Hail, 
 as every one knows, is a most capricious customer to deal 
 with. It picks out the districts to be swept over without 
 any regard for actuarial calculations, lumping its ravages 
 together, either locally or in respect of time, in the most 
 unaccountable manner. Its heavy depredations in 
 Hungary, in 1897 and 1898, causing insurance companies 
 to raise their premiums suddenly by 100 per cent, have 
 already been spoken of. There is even worse to tell of 
 1909, the losses sustained in which year caused the six 
 largest hail insurance companies in Germany — being 
 '■ mutual " — to supplement their ordinary levies by ad- 
 ditional surcharges ranging from 160 to 350 per cent, of the 
 former. No small folks' co-operative society could have 
 stood such a test. In Italy the trouble is that hail visits — 
 and that heavily — only certain districts, namely, the valleys 
 of the great rivers, leaving the higher groimd unmolested. 
 Under such circumstances it is exceedingly difficult to secure 
 sufficient support for co-operative hail insurance. Elsewhere 
 insurance, whether co-operative or otherwise, is practised 
 only partially, apphed only to distinct crops, or within 
 a fixed hmit of damage. Hence, after all, the first Napo- 
 leon's advice to his countrymen seems still good, that 
 they should insure with particularly strong companies, 
 such as he found estabUshed in Germany, instancing more 
 in particular one in Mecklenburg. Even in the hands 
 of companies, however, insurance against hail is now 
 generally " mutual." " Mutualism " in such sense, in which 
 its " Co-operativeness " consists purely in fluctuating 
 premiums and elastic liability, applied under ordinary 
 commercial and centralised management, is of course not 
 
.244 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 the same thing by a long way as " Co-operation," which 
 makes every participant an active co-wotker and sharer 
 in the burdens and responsibiUties of the undertaking. 
 It seems, as observed, the proper method for hail insurance. 
 Nevertheless there are some instances in which the co-opera- 
 tive method has been apphed. Thus France, which has 
 also co-operative insurance against spring frosts, possesses 
 about 25 co-operative hail insurance societies, 7 of which 
 insure only growing tobacco crops. The entire value 
 insured by the 25 does not much exceed £1,000,000. 
 Societies of this sort frequently find themselves compelled 
 to fix a limit to the compensation to be allowed. Thus, in 
 Belgium, the W estvlaamsch Landhowers draw the Une at 45b 
 francs per hectare, which corresponds to about £7 4s. per 
 acre. Switzerland, which is probably the country most 
 fully provided with agricultural insurance, with Government 
 support, has a few co-operative hail insurance societies, 
 more particularly for its vineyards ; but the business 
 is circumscribed. There is also some Httle co-operative 
 hail insurance in the Scaiidinavian kingdoms, but fortunate- 
 ly as a rule very httle haU. Italy on the other hand, is 
 sorely visited, as has been shown ; but in spite of official 
 attempts at persuasion, people are slow to combine. The 
 Belgian Government has used much persuasion to induce 
 its farmers to form mutual hail insurance societies ; but 
 there is httle response. Hail is, then, a risk which, like 
 burglary, glass, fidehty and some others, had best be 
 left to capitaUst enterprise. 
 
 In respect of insurance against fire, on the other 
 hand. Co-operation has scored some genuine successes. 
 And although, where there are large numbers desiring to 
 be insured, there is much to be Scdd in favour of the 
 method of collective insurance by bargaining with some 
 great joint stock company, there is also distinctly a pro- 
 mising opening for insurance on " dividing down " lines. 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 245 
 
 by co-operators themselves. The most brilliant results 
 have, as a matter of course, been attained in the United 
 States, where co-operative insurance against fire and other 
 risks is carried on on a gigantic scale by about 2,000 
 societies, answering for about two million of members 
 and bringing down the cost, in the words of the Secretary 
 of the Department of Agriculture, to " a very few cents 
 per 100 dollars of risk above the actual losses." Only we 
 do not quite know how far such "Co-operation " really is 
 Co-operation. In this country we may, in respect of fire, 
 look for satisfactory results, provided that risks are kept 
 -within moderate limits, proportioned to the power existing 
 for meeting them ; and that for any excess there 
 be some powerful institution to act as re-insurer. For 
 a great point in this insurance is that the insurers should 
 not make themselves Hable beyond the limits of what their 
 capital can answer for. That point has been thoroughly 
 tested in our Co-operative Insurance Society, in which 
 prudent hmitation of losses has triumphantly carried the 
 day. No insurance is now taken on any one estabhshment 
 beyond the value of one third of the annual premium 
 income. That Hmit of course keeps rising from year 
 to year, as the income from premiums increases. All 
 excess insurance is passed on to some stronger institution. 
 On these hues the Society has kept steadily increasing 
 its business and maintained itself more than solvent. 
 The point, then, here pleaded for is thoroughly established ; 
 yet it is a point that is still far too often overlooked by 
 ambitious planners of co-operative insurance. 
 
 The reason why in this application the co-operati\-e 
 form of insurance is so promising is that Co-operation 
 has the power, by means of carrying down responsibility, 
 like a "view of frankpledge," to the very units of member- 
 ship, and of watching, to reduce the risk of damage more 
 than any other method, and at the same time also to keep 
 
246 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 the valuation within the strict limits of fact. It provides 
 effectually against making a gain out of a conflagration, 
 and also against damage brought about by carelessness, 
 or defective construction, not to say worse. Of course 
 it is desirable — even necessary, if the insurance is to be 
 adequate — that the small local units, which in themselves 
 cannot fail to be feeble, should be gathered together 
 into a strengthening union or federation, so as to offer 
 a broad front to risk. But its peculiar merit lies in its 
 " dividing down, " and thereby creating local units with 
 quick — because interested — and everpresent eyes, and 
 brains jperpetually and instinctively on the alert. 
 
 For the most systematic apphcation of this method 
 we have once more to go to France, whose people appear 
 to possess a peculiar aptitude for organisation of this kind 
 — coupled, unfortunately, with a lamentable lack of belief 
 in themselves and their own power. This makes them 
 lean more than is at all necessary upon aid to be given 
 by the taxpayer, whose interest is not at all involved in 
 the risk. The method applied is in substance the same 
 as that so successfully employed in five stock insurance. 
 And so were the motives which prompted this form of 
 insurance. Small agriculturists, who have not much 
 time to spare from their labour, nor any too much money 
 in their purses, severely felt the inconvenience of insuring 
 with great insurance companies — whose offices are often 
 far away — involving what seemed a veritable journey, and 
 whose rates were at the time undoubtedly high. In 
 addition, the authorities, on their side, realised the danger 
 of the proximus ardens Ucalegon, which appeared to 
 render general insurance a matter of pubUc duty, as it has 
 led Governments east of France to make fire insurance 
 for buildings compulsory. 
 
 It was only in 1900 that a law was passed in France, 
 encouraging, without actually prescribing, " mutual " 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 247 
 
 fire insurance, by the promise of public grants. The 
 first local society of this new kind was actually formed 
 in 1901. And within less than ten years France counted 
 no fewer than 2,187 local societies, comprising about 
 90,000 members and insuring about £40,000,000 worth 
 of property. Such success, however, is in a large measure 
 due to the supplementary act of brigading the local societies 
 in "regional" federations, which Count de Vogiie, one 
 of the leaders of the movement, rather overratingly terms 
 the " pivot," on which the entire movement turns. It 
 is the " common cashbox " supporting local vigilance 
 which has produced strength sufficient to meet the calls 
 made. There are now eighteen such federations. And 
 above them stands the " Central " Society, to which the 
 federations hand over one half of their takings in premiums, 
 and which, in return, makes good to them half of their 
 outgoings in compensations. That is a great gain. But 
 it is not yet held to meet all requirements of the case. 
 Accordingly it is now proposed to back up the entire 
 system with re-insurance, to be effected by some powerful 
 capitalist company, which is in very deed — coupled with 
 the alternative device of passing on excess risks to other 
 insurance institutions— the method upon which our own 
 excellently managed British " Co-operative Insurance 
 Society " has successfully built up its fabric. 
 
 However the prime merit hes, not with federation, 
 but with the small local societies in which, by strict control 
 and supervision, damage has been kept down to such a 
 degree as to amount in 1905 to only 34.57 per cent, of 
 the premium income, whereas in companies it stood at 
 53.10 per cent. In 1906 by some freak of fortune the 
 co-operative figure went up to 61.94 per cent., as compared 
 with 50.10 per cent, in companies. However since that 
 year it has remained rather strikingly below, recording 
 in 1907 46.94 as against 58.56 per cent., in 1908 43.87 
 
248 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 as against 53.28 per cent., and in 1909 23.50 as against 
 50.17 per cent. And it ought to be borne in mind that 
 the co-operative premiums, not being based upon a cal- 
 culation of profit, and being liable to subsequent calls, are 
 lower to begin with than the premiums charged by com- 
 panies. And it also deserves to be remembered that aU 
 this has been accomplished, in spite of the law unkindly 
 — and vinreasonably — flaying the obUgation upon "mutual " 
 societies, as a condition for their receiving " assistance," 
 not to reject any risk, however bad it may be, but to 
 accept all of their pecuhar kind, within their own district. 
 We have, as will be seen, been wiser in this respect in 
 this country. Nevertheless the co-operative method 
 has proved successful in France to such an extent that 
 insurance premiums rule on an average 20 per cent, below 
 companies' premiums. In some societies the difference 
 is even greater. Thus the well managed Mutuelle Agricole 
 Incendie del'Est, a federation, keeps the rates a full 33 per 
 cent, below company rates. 
 
 In the Agricultural Organisation Society we have 
 since 1908 applied the same principle in a rather different 
 way. We have, so to speak, begim with the federation 
 and organised downwards, constituting the local units 
 as self-governing branches. There are good reasons for 
 this. Under our law, as it now stanas, there can be no 
 insurance unless at least £20,000 paid up share capital 
 can be shown by the insuring institution. That altogether 
 precludes the formation of parish societies as independent 
 units. In other respects we are more favourably situated 
 than our neighbours in France. There is no law to pro- 
 hibit our sifting our cases and rejecting bad ones. That 
 is answerable for a great deal. Sifting is far the best 
 done on the spot, by neighbours who thoroughly know 
 the properties and their owners. It is accordingly en- 
 trusted to local committees, who in return for their services 
 
CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE. 249 
 
 receive a commission of 15 per cent, on all business which, 
 they bring to the Society, in addition to one-third of the 
 net annual profits resulting from such business. Such 
 local committees are required to report up to headquarters,, 
 where insurance is actually effected by the Society as 
 a whole, the local committee still acting as interested 
 watchers, being shareholders, and also having a contingent 
 right to part of the profits. It is rather too early still 
 to report results and to judge if we should not have done 
 better to insure with the Co-operative Insurance Society, 
 which would certainly have been equal to the charge 
 and would of course have derived additional strength — 
 needed, while the Co-operative Wholesale Society was 
 casting wistful eyes upon it — from the new custom. Our 
 business has extended so as to embrace over a million 
 of property insured. It will be interesting to watch its 
 further progress. 
 
 The business done by the Co-operative Insurance 
 Society of Manchester, although fully co-operative, is 
 otherwise too little specifically agricultural, and too much 
 centralised, to call for notice here. The Society has been 
 very successful ; and one of its distinctive operations 
 is so interesting and ingenious that it seems to deserve 
 mention. It appHes to Life Insurance, which — for the 
 present, at any rate — agricultural societies, with their 
 small limited membership, will do well to leave alone. 
 It is different where numbers of small men are gathered 
 together in busy bee-hive stores. A Store availing itself 
 of the insurance — there are now already about 330 
 societies with about 570,000 members doing this — is 
 called upon to pay one penny annually for every member, 
 whose account is of course charged with such payment- 
 The benefit to be received in the event of death is deter- 
 mined by the value of the insuring person's purchases 
 ^^•ith the Store. Every £1 disbursed with the Store 
 
250 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 entitles to 4s. benefit, or, where husband and \vife are 
 joint members, to 2S. for the wife and 4s. for the husband. 
 To be just to the Society and fair to old people, for ages 
 from 65 upwards purchases are reckoned, not for one year, 
 but for the average of from three to ten years, according 
 to advancing age. This in no wise goes against the 
 insured person's interest ; for old folk are likely to have 
 purchased more beavUy in preceding years than in the 
 last. And to prevent abuse by people bu5ring goods beyond 
 their own wants, in order to resell, a maximum Umit is 
 drawn, for the 4s. beneficiaries at £50, and for the 2S. 
 beneficiaries at . £25. The system has this advantage 
 that it saves the Insurance Society an enormous amount 
 of labotir in respect of bookkeeping, which means that it 
 saves the insured an enormous amoimt of outgoings, 
 so much so that management expenses come to be reduced 
 to about 5 per cent.., as compared with about 43 per cent, 
 in Companies, and that accordingly £z premium will pur- 
 chase 19s. of direct benefit. This is effected by the Society 
 making the Store its bookkeeper. At the same time 
 it imposes no additional labour upon the Store. It is 
 truly a triumph of co-operative principle apphed to 
 insurance. Possibly the time may come when agricul- 
 turists likewise wiU be able to benefit by such a scheme. 
 In any case one may take it to have been shown that 
 there is a good deal of scope for the employment of co-opera- 
 tive methods in insurance. 
 
XII.— CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. 
 
 In its connection with Agriculture Co-operative 
 Credit should command quite pecuhar interest among 
 all forms of Co-operation adopted. For not only does it 
 supply that vsdthout which other forms of Co-operation 
 could scarcely be carried on, that is, money ; but, in 
 addition, it has also by further effects given proof of its 
 remarkable power of suggesting and generating such other 
 forms of Agricultural Co-operation. The foremost country 
 in respect of Agricultural Co-operation at the present time 
 is Germany, which possesses about 26,000 registered 
 agricultural co-operative societies, and has a larger out- 
 turn of co-operative produce than any other country. 
 However, before Credit Co-operation came on the scene, 
 in Germany Agricultural Co-operation was practically 
 non-existent. It was Credit, the commaind of money, 
 which gave aU other Co-operation the start, stimulating 
 the taste for it, and providing the means with which to 
 set it up. 
 
 Co-operative Credit has this to distinguish it from 
 all other forms of Co-operation : — Whereas they all come 
 into the field with money, or else visible and tangible 
 money's worth in their hand, wheremth to purchase the 
 desired commodities. Credit to all appearance comes 
 forward empty-Randed, with nothing but a want, to be 
 satisfied with borrowed money. Such appearance is 
 misleading, as we shall see. Credit after all brings very 
 good money's worth with it — or it would not be entitled 
 to the money that it asks for. Only, that money's worth 
 is not otherwise recognised by the banking or depositing 
 
252 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 market. Hence capitalists and depositors cannot lend 
 upon it. It speaks, so to put it, a different language from 
 theirs. It is based upon conditions of which they know 
 nothing. 
 
 The peculiar task, the crux of its office, accordingly 
 is, not to beg for large supphes of money, but to make the 
 latent raw material for security — ^which security is the 
 only thing which will legitimately buy credit — effective in 
 the market, to which in any case it has to go for its supphes. 
 Once that object is attained, there can no longer be any 
 need to look about for money ; money will come of its 
 own accord ; there is plenty of it in the world, and it seeks 
 eagerly for employment. 
 
 Such explanation ought to make it clear what a grossly 
 mistaken pohcy those pursue who, putting the cart before 
 the horse, ask for money before they have their fabric 
 ready, in a condition entitling it to receive such. It means 
 waste — a possible white elephant, such as money must 
 needs be for which there is no employment. It means, 
 moreover, temptation to business which would run 
 altogether counter to co-operative principle. For Co- 
 operative Credit, so it is generally admitted, should pro- 
 vide cash only for productive or provident outlay. It 
 must furthermore mean a precarious position, because it 
 means dependence upon some one else who may withdraw 
 to-morrow what he has given to-day. It means dearer 
 money than a bank could obtain for itself by deposits, 
 when obtaining the cheapest possible supply of money 
 must of necessity be its object. 
 
 This being explained, it may not be amiss just briefly 
 to recall what is the object of Co-operative Credit. 
 
 It is not to supply capital for fixed outlay, as those 
 appear to assume who currently talk of "agricultural" 
 banks as " landbanks." It is also not to provide money 
 for anyone who asks for it. It is, in the present connec- 
 
CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. 25J 
 
 tion, to provide Agriculture with ready-money for the one 
 purpose of making such Agriculture more profitable. In 
 modern times Agriculture requires very much more work- 
 ing capital than generally speaking it is suppHed with. 
 Such money may, if rightly applied, earn a very good 
 rewai-d for itself — much better than that for which it 
 may itself be hired. Hence, so far as such conditions apply, 
 it is perfectly legitimate to borrow it for the purposes 
 indicated. However, the application of the conditions- 
 stated is essential. There must be a good chance, a moral 
 certainty of the money lent reproducing itself with increase. 
 Therefore the object kept in view should, as observed, be 
 either directly productive, or else at any rate distinctly 
 provident. Effecting an economy by buying in large 
 quantities, or for cash instead of on credit, or at the most 
 favourable time ; or else replacing a usurious debt by a 
 cheaper one — all this comes legitimately within the terms- 
 of our conditions. 
 
 So much for the object. Now for the means. 
 
 Nobody can reasonably find fault with our financial 
 institutions, or even our depositors of savings, for not 
 having hitherto accommodated themselves to the con- 
 ditions of agricultural credit business, which as a rule 
 demands longer and more elastic credit than do Industry 
 and Commerce, and which has rules, habits and, so to call 
 it, a language differing from those of the banking world. 
 That is the very difficulty to be combated. There are two- 
 ends, each good and useful in itself, waiting to be joined 
 together — money on one side, want with excellent, but for 
 the moment unshaped, security, on the other. But the 
 two require a link to unite them. Such link can only be 
 supplied by a new kind of institution, standing between 
 the two, close — that is a most essential point — to the 
 seekers of credit, and speaking, to adhere to the simile 
 impressed, their language, but also speaking the language- 
 
^54 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 of the money world — understanding the small rural in- 
 habitant's wants, and also his security, and capable of 
 making that security effective and bringing it, in a form 
 that a banker can understand and appreciate, to the 
 banking market. 
 
 The raw material of security among rural folk is not, 
 as is often assumed — so it may be well to point out — their 
 possession of land and buildings. The quite heterodox 
 opinion that it is has been given expression to even in Ger- 
 many — where indeed most land affected by co-operative 
 credit is freehold, but where none the less the rule is 
 generally accepted that the security given should be 
 personal. In Italy, where Agricultural Credit is as freely 
 practised as in Germany, very much of the land to which 
 it is apphed is, in contradistinction to Germany, leasehold 
 land, or land held at will. This apphes also to Belgium, 
 and hkewise to France, so far as village tradesmen come into 
 account, for whom the caisses rurales et otivrieres are 
 distinctly also intended. Indeed, real security is what 
 co-operative banks — like others — should particularly seek 
 to avoid, except it be as collateral seciurity. When seized, 
 it becomes exceedingly burdensome, and also uncertain ; 
 for its price fluctuates. Co-operative banks were created 
 to deal out personal credit, which is the most convenient, 
 the least costly, the least burdensome, and also the most 
 educating form of credit that there is. All the more 
 reason is there to take care that it is made safe. 
 
 M. Luzzatti has put it that the security of a co-opera- 
 tive bank is " the worth of its members." Such " worth " 
 has of course first to be ascertained and made effective. 
 And it may be made effective in one or other of two ways. 
 The members — that is, the persons who combine to form 
 the bank, because from time to time they require credit 
 - — may lay down a certain sum of money each, as first 
 security for what they propose to borrow, leaving good 
 
CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. 255 
 
 management, as evidenced in periodicaJi balance sheets, 
 to be well advertised — the " maximum of publicity " that 
 Sir R. Morier asks for — to answer for the rest.- Or else 
 they may combine, with or without taking shares, but 
 pledging their entire possessions, without limitation, one 
 for all and all for one. 
 
 This explanation will have to be supplemented by 
 iurther details. 
 
 In the first place, under either form of organisation 
 the local bank, which is to serve as intermediate link 
 between the rural population and the world which is to 
 provide the money, begins by creating a select clientele, 
 elected for their presumable trustworthiness, to whom 
 admission to credit is rigorously restricted. Such condition 
 provides a first safeguard, which may be made very effec- 
 tive, more particularly when unhmited Uabihty is brought 
 into play, providing that members generally will have 
 to answer for the default of any one among their number. 
 That consideration gets rid of all etiquette and makes 
 first election, and subsequently other dealings, searching. 
 
 The bank next takes into account either the financial 
 value of the member asking to become a borrower, or else 
 the employment of the loan itself, which in this way 
 becomes a pledge for its own value. In this case the 
 borrower — who, of course, has also to provide security in 
 the shape of sureties or otherwise — is tied down to one par- 
 ticular employment, which the Committee have considered 
 and foimd legitimate and promising, on pain of having 
 his loan summarily called in and the sureties made liable. 
 In the other case, members, being possible borrowers, are 
 " appraised" for credit, and their " value" is entered in 
 a register- which is kept strictly private, in the manager's 
 desk. Up to the figure there named the manager becomes 
 authorised, supposing that there is money in hand, to 
 make advances to each member, with or without addi- 
 
2S6 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 tional security, as the Committee may have determined ; 
 but not beyond that point, except there be quite im- 
 impeachable security tendered, or unless the Committee- 
 decide that in this particular instance he may go further. 
 
 In the last place, to put things very briefly, the 
 bank — which does not work for profit and pays only a 
 moderate limited dividend upon its share capital, where 
 there is any — makes a point of adding steadily and system- 
 atically to its reserve fund. 
 
 The same regard for safety involves what is a standing- 
 rule in all co-operative banks of every description, namely,, 
 that in the investment of money no risk whatever should, 
 be incurred. 
 
 One indispensable corollary to the principles here laid 
 down is this, that in the conduct of the bank's affairs 
 there should be plenty of careful and searching checking. 
 Just because people seek credit upon only a slender ready- 
 money basis is it necessary that every precept laid down 
 in the interest of safety should be strictly enforced. " Your 
 system of strict payments and watching the employment 
 of the loan," so the late Duke of Argyll wrote after reading 
 my Village Bank Rules, " is admirable." Checking and 
 controlling is accordingly the fibre which runs through the 
 entire organisation, like the sympathetic nerve, ugly 
 customer that it is, through the human body. People 
 sometimes rebel against this, grudging the trouble — so long 
 as nothing has gone wrong. But in pMn reason they must 
 consent to give in elbow grease what they cannot give in 
 money. In a well organised co-operative bank borrowers. 
 are checked, the Committee is checked, and the bank 
 itself ought, if possible, to be checked by a more experi- 
 enced body, so that nothing can go wrong. 
 
 It may at once be said that wherever in such banking 
 anything has gone wrong the fault has invariably been 
 found to lie with defective checking. 
 
CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. 2-^7 
 
 How these principles apply in practice will best be 
 -shown by a brief exposition of the two main systems in 
 operation. 
 
 So far as people desiring to combine for the purpose 
 of co-operative credit have a knowledge of business and 
 sufficient ready cash to warrant such course — ^therefore 
 under all circumstances among our larger farmers — ^the 
 system of shares and limited liability offers the greatest 
 advantages. It ties people less than the other, it is adapt- 
 able to all circumstances and sets no limit to working 
 districts. It presupposes the formation of a small capital 
 — ^to serve rather as a guarantee than as working funds — 
 by the taking up of shares, which in our country it will be 
 best to fix at not too high a figure, but to make payable 
 within a rather narrowly limited time, say a year or two. 
 In Germany and Austria, where unlimited liability pre- 
 -dominates even in share banks, a different practice prevails. 
 Shares are there purposely made large, up to £50, and 
 plenty of tiine is allowed for paying them up. The same 
 rule apphes in some very successful banks in Switzerland. 
 Elsewhere — and most notably in Italy — small shares — 
 the number of which may under our Act be carried up to 
 the value of ;£200 — payable within ten or twenty months, 
 and coupled with hmited hability only, answer equally 
 well. The value of shares may be fixed at any figure, 
 -down to a few shiUings. However, a small share capital 
 will of course purchase only small credit. On the other 
 hand, large shares wiU keep out smaller folk. Whatever 
 be the value of the shares, it must not be they which deter- 
 mine the voting power of members in the bank. The 
 bank is to be " co-operative " ; that means that it is to 
 be a union, not of capitals but of persons ; and, whatever 
 be the holding of each member, the voting power must 
 be equal as among them. 
 
 The main point is that there should be good manage- 
 
258 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 ment, which means not only that there should be a com- 
 petent and active Committee — ^meeting as often as business 
 may require, and being itself periodically supervised by 
 a Council of Inspection, as a protection to itself as against 
 importunate credit-seekers, and as a protection likewise 
 to shareholders against possible carelessness or excessive 
 complaisance — ^but also that, as observed, no bank money 
 should be lent out except on good security and for re- 
 munerative employment. It is for banks of this order 
 that the credit register already spoken of has been devised. 
 There is no need in this case of very minute investigation ; 
 the general conduct of the member wiU vouch for proper 
 employment ; but it is necessary that some discrimination 
 should be used, and that discrimination should also be 
 practised in the election of members, so as to make the 
 very election some sort of guarartee. 
 
 By means of banks of this type* very large districts 
 may be served — ^provided that there are persons distributed 
 over it on whose judgment, with regard to the eligibility^ 
 of newcomers, and the legitimacy and safety of loans 
 asked for, reliance may be placed. 
 
 The other system in use is much less elastic in its 
 application, but it is applicable to a very much humbler 
 stratum, to men with very small means, and indeed, 
 without any — except a good character. Vouched for by 
 neighbours, be made to count as such. Under it there 
 need be neither shares nor entrance fees — although there 
 may be both kinds of payments on a modest scale, which 
 must in any case be so fixed as not to ieep out any one 
 who has a moral right to admission. Shares were at the 
 outset ruled out altogether for two distinct reasons. The 
 first was that every one whose honesty could be vouched 
 for should be able to join, even though he be as poor as 
 a church-mouse. And the second, that all possible cause 
 of conflict between opposed interests — ^money and need 
 
CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. 259. 
 
 — should be carefully excluded. A share suggests divi- 
 dend ; and dividend suggests its own increase — which 
 leads straight up to dualism, money standing on one side, 
 aiming at liberal remuneration, to be got out of borrowers ; 
 and need on the other, liable to be crushed by such capital. 
 However, the bank was intended in the interest of need, 
 with money coming ia only to help, not to exploit. It 
 is the borrower's interest which must rule supreme. 
 
 Since there are no shares, there must, as a security 
 to lenders, be unlimited liabiUty, of all for all, with — 
 partly for the protection of the persons so made liable — 
 care taken to accumulate — ^gradually though it be, but 
 steadily — a fund belonging to the bank as such — ^that is, 
 not divisible — ^to serve as first security to creditors. 
 
 Unhmited Uabihty, once it is understood, is of a nature 
 to secure quite as much credit as a small people's bank 
 is likely to require. Only it ought to be borne in mind — 
 it seems often to be forgotten in this country — that it is 
 submitted to as a safeguard to the lender and must there- 
 fore not be illusory but real. People must not be 
 allowed to slip out of it unobserved, as is laid down in 
 some " Model Rules," depriving the lender of his security. 
 And people must not be allowed to pledge their " unlimited 
 liability " in more banks than one. Doing this would of 
 course limit it at once and might make it altogether 
 nugatory. This point does not appear to be fully realised 
 in this country. 
 
 Unlimited liability is also wanted in the interest of 
 the bank itself, to ensure that members elected to office 
 will work to the best of their abiUty. This applies not 
 by any means least to the wealthier members, upon whom 
 actually greatest habihty will fall. Their credit is to- 
 assist the bank ; but their knowledge of business and 
 experience are to assist it at least as much. They are 
 not likely, however, to give such value unless they are 
 
26o CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 iinlimitedly liable, because what would be to them a small 
 limited loss would have no terrors for them. They have 
 plenty of means for protecting themselves open to them. 
 In the first place it is an accepted rule that the members 
 of each bank should themselves, at the begitming of each 
 year, limit their own hability, while leaving it unUmited 
 to the outside world, by fixing a certain figure beyond 
 which no credit may be given — so much to the individual, 
 so much collectively. But beyond that, the wealthier 
 members are sure to be allowed representation on the 
 governing bodies and to have a full say, since the bank 
 wants them, in order to have security to pledge, and is 
 sure to heed their protests and warnings, for fear that 
 they should go out — which, at any rate in the earlier stages, 
 it is advisable that they should be at liberty to do at any 
 time.* 
 
 UnUmited liability inexorably requires what is in this 
 connection desirable also on other grounds, that is, small 
 districts. It would become distinctly dangerous were it 
 applied to organisations in which there is not constant 
 •close touch among members, good knowledge of one 
 another's business, position and character, and the possi- 
 bility of constant automatic observation. In these little 
 banks the election only of trustworthy members — advances 
 being by standing rule restricted to members only — is of 
 even more vital importance than in the larger ones already 
 spoken of. And hence their great educational value, 
 which priests and ministers have pronounced superior 
 to that of their own teaching, and to which judges and 
 Government officers have borne ready testimony. For 
 membership in the bank is worth something to people. 
 
 *The new German Rules require at least six months', but in 
 some cases two years' notice, to take effect after the term fixed, 
 provided that that period fails within the current of the financial 
 year. In justification of this it has been pleaded that circum- 
 -stances have materially changed. 
 
CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. 261 
 
 Job is not expected to " serve God for nought." But 
 he must serve, that is, he must be known to his neighbours 
 to be honest and provident, or he will not be elected — or, 
 being elected, wiU be turned out again. Hence a goodly 
 number of men have been taught to forsake the bottle 
 and evil or careless living in order to quaUfy for member- 
 ship.* 
 
 The necessity of mutual knowledge and touch does 
 not end with the election of members, that is, customers. 
 The pledging of unhmited hability being committed to 
 officers, it is indispensable that the- qualification and 
 trustworthiness of those officers should be known. And 
 every member being made responsible for the liabilities 
 of every other single debtor, it is essential that the latter's 
 employment of his borrowed money should not only be 
 carefuUy judged, but subsequently watched, because its 
 employment becomes a pledge for the loan. Now all this 
 is not attainable unless there is touch and instinctive 
 observation, which is possible only in a society with a 
 small area, in which full publicity becomes almost a 
 matter of course and is automatically provided. The loan 
 business is not carried on behind a screen, as in a " Loan 
 Society." Members know what other people are members, 
 who has borrowed money, what for, and how he is repa\'- 
 ing. There is only one thing which they do not know and 
 must not know, and that is who is a depositor, and what 
 his deposits amount to. All such pubhcity and mutual 
 knowledge is indispensable. It is the substitute for the 
 cash deposit in share money which members, as we pre- 
 sume, cannot make. But it is practicable only in districts 
 geographically small. The ordinary parish supplies the 
 best size for a district, and it also at the same time provides 
 that which is as desirable as a suitable size, namely, a 
 
 *The remarkable ef&cacy of co-operative banks in bringing 
 -this about is more fully shown in the Author's " People's Banks." 
 
 S 
 
262 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE, 
 
 constituency with a natural bond among its components 
 without which it is difficult to estabhsh the moral influenc« 
 of one member upon the other that there should be 
 However, no hard and fast Une can be drawn. 
 
 The mechanism of such a bank is then this. A verj 
 small number of members is sufficient to start the bank 
 Our law requires that there should be seven. There will; 
 as a rule, be more. Such members elect their Committee, 
 which may consist of only three, though in larger banks 
 five will be preferable. It is not a bad plan to elect the 
 chairman independently of the Committee, to become its 
 ex-offlcio head, but to hold office directly under the General 
 Meeting. The Committee elects new members, receives 
 whatever money comes in and deals out loans, every one 
 of which lastnamed must be specially approved, as being 
 legitimate for the particular applicant and promising 
 to more than repay itself. The loan wants to be granted 
 to such amount and for such a period as wiU admit of its 
 accomplishing the desired work and repa5dng itself out 
 of its own proceeds. Otherwise the borrower would have 
 to tax other sources of income, which would mean to him 
 embarrassment rather than assistance. If the loan be 
 granted for more than a year, it should be made repayable 
 by instalments. The Committee should be very strict 
 with respect to repayment on the proper days and employ- 
 ment of the loan. It may grant extensions when called 
 for ; but they must not be taken without its leave. Every 
 loan should be duly secured — best by sureties, whose 
 signatures should be verified. 
 
 In one respect care is taken from the outset that the 
 Committee should not in their granting of loans be exposed 
 to undue influence. They are made to serve without an\ 
 remuneration whatever — out of pocket expenses alone 
 being allowed for. Only the secretary, or actuary, oi 
 whatever you may please to call him — the man who keeps 
 
CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. 265 
 
 the books and personally deals out and receives the money 
 —is allowed to draw a salary, which the circumstances of 
 the bank will of themselves enforce should be moderate. 
 On the other hand this man is allowed no voice whatever 
 in the granting of loans. Under such circumstances the 
 Committee-man is secure from the temptation to grant 
 a loan because his remuneration is worth something to him 
 and the apphcant may threaten not to vote for his re- 
 election if it is not granted. 
 
 However human feeling is strong among neighbours, 
 and the Committee-men, if left unsupervised, might only 
 too easily, from kindness, or weakness, allow themselves 
 to be prevailed upon to " stretch a point," which might 
 imperil the interest of the bank. To protect the bank 
 against this — and also to serve another purpose, still to 
 be spoken of — there is a Coimcil of Inspection, which is 
 required to overhaul all the business done at least once 
 every three months and point out irregularities or sources 
 of danger, and also to judge whether the Committee has 
 used its discretion rightly. With such an authority on 
 the watch, the Committee-man is armed against undue 
 importunity, and is otherwise placed upon his good 
 behaviour. If pressure be put upon him by apphcants, 
 he can point to the Council as holding him responsible. 
 In new countries and new banks people are apt to question 
 the necessity of such supervising body, for which it is not 
 always easy to find men. And for a Httle while a small 
 bank may intelligibly do without it. However, wherever 
 loss has occurred — through dishonesty, embezzlement, or 
 sheer carelessness — the mischief has invariably been traced 
 to the absence or remissness of a Council of Inspection. 
 
 That Council is, as observed, to serve another purpose 
 besides supervision, which purpose is by its own annual 
 Report, supplementing the Report of the Committee, to 
 make the General Meeting fully cognisant of what is going 
 
264 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 on, in order to enable it to understand the precise position 
 of affairs the better. Without such comment to the 
 Report a meeting of plain rural folk might experience some 
 difficulty in grasping the meaning of what is placed before it. 
 
 There is another important point which remains to 
 be considered, namely : how are banks of either order 
 described to obtain their funds ? They cannot do busi- 
 ness without, and on their first formation they are likely, 
 in a purely business way, to appeal to existing financial 
 institutions, and even to the great body of depositors, in 
 vain. The paltry payments made on account of shares 
 will not go far. And entrance fees can at most serve only 
 to cover the outlay for stationery, books and the like. 
 
 Ultimately the main source of cash for co-operative 
 banks of both kinds should be savings deposits — from any 
 one who chooses to make them. The bank's declared 
 object is quite as much to promote thrift as to facilitate 
 credit. And deposit money is not only the cheapest, and 
 the safest source for such — as being less liable to with- 
 drawal in large quantities than other loans — but also 
 the source which secures to the bank greatest independ- 
 ence. Without independence the bank cannot count upon 
 becoming permanent and permitted to do its work un- 
 hindered. It should make it its endeavour to become the 
 favourite savings bank of its district. Experience proves 
 that in the long run depositors prefer it to the pubhc 
 savings bank, because it is their own, connected with their 
 own locality, of&cered by their own nominees, and keeping 
 the money collected fructifying in the district, where its 
 benefit may be seen and gauged — instead of sending it up 
 to London, " to appreciate Consols." Having a more 
 remunerative employment for its money, it will also as 
 a rule be in a position to allow a higher rate of interest. 
 
 However, at starting the bank will find such prospect 
 to be still only " music of the future." 
 
CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. 265 
 
 To supply it with first funds it has been proposed to 
 create an Endowment fund, or Financial Institution, 
 which is to be called — for a long time miscalled — " Central 
 Bank." Experience has not proved favourable to such 
 method, for reasons which it is not difficult to divine. 
 In order to " force " co-operative credit — oncei its merits 
 were recognised — foreign Governments have expended 
 large sums of money and employed powerful official 
 influence as well — providing first cash for co-operative 
 banks which rural populations did not care to form of 
 their own accord, but were strongly urged to form. The 
 banks have been formed, of course, and they are outwardly 
 co-operative ; however, the co-operative character which 
 gives backbone and stability to such an institution is 
 wanting. Parasites these banks have been created, and 
 parasites they remain. " First " cash proves a euphemism. 
 The source once opened is kept continually running. Why, 
 indeed, should people exert themselves and practise self- 
 denial to create funds of their own, when there is a Little 
 Providence ever ready to supply them with such ? The 
 consequence is that they remain dependent upon external 
 help. They become pot plants, failing to strike root. 
 And no pot plant ever bears much fruit. 
 
 There is more. A " Central Bank " is an extremely 
 useful institution when really " central," that is, when 
 made the centre of a system of banks already formed. 
 In such position it may equalise the want of one bank by 
 drawing upon the oveft'-abundance of another ; and, 
 whenever occasion arises, it may " tap " the great money 
 market. It will then be in its proper position as the 
 servant of the other banks, under their control and doing 
 their work. But if you start with a " Central Bank " and 
 make it " finance," that is, create, local banks, which 
 otherwise no one calls for, the position becomes reversed. 
 The " Central Bank " becomes the master, studying its 
 
266 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 own interest. The position of affairs becomes further 
 aggravated by this fact that the " Central Bank," being 
 the only central institution existing at the outset, is not 
 "unaccountably to be employed to prescribe to and control 
 the local banks, which ought, under reasonable conditions, 
 rather to control it. And so we get that mischievous 
 feature of "patronage" stereotyped, which has thus far 
 marked aU attempts to " create " co-operative credit 
 from the outside, but which means the death of genuine 
 Co-operation. People whose qualification for the task 
 is questionable, evem if their pretension to its execution 
 be legitimate, presume to settle for others, who are to bear 
 all the responsibility, how they are to deal with their money 
 and their liability. That is not Co-operation ; and it 
 ■cannot yield good results. People in every local bank 
 will have to decide for themselves what they choose to do. 
 Since they are responsible for themselves, which is the 
 backbone of the whole matter, they must also be entirely 
 their own masters. You cannot turn Co-operation into 
 a mere puppet show, in which someone behind the scenes 
 pulls the strings, without destroying its character as 
 Co-operation. The " Central Bank," if there is one, wiU 
 have — ^if a creditor — a creditor's right to inspect accounts 
 and send interrogatories. But it must be understood that 
 it does this purely in its own interest, in no way in the 
 interest of the local banks — ^which interest is, in such case, 
 -distinct from its own. The inspection from outside, or 
 from above — by which indeed local banks are likely to 
 benefit greatly, and which it will be well to introduce as 
 soon as there is a Union of such banks to practise it — 
 should be inspection carried out in the interest of the 
 banks. 
 
 In aU probabiUty, if only people in this country knew 
 what serious difficulties and embarrassments " Central 
 Banks " — formed under the impression that theirs would 
 
CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. ' 267 
 
 be an easy task — ^have had to struggle with, they would 
 be less keen upon starting one — possibly to serve as a rod 
 for their own backs. There is not one which has not 
 found most troublesome difficulty coming upon it, such as 
 has in the principal cases concerned led up to the very 
 precipice of insolvency and hquidation. The Schulze- 
 Delitzsch Central Bank has been forced to seek: 
 salvation in amalgamption with the Dresdner Bank. The 
 Raiffeisen Central Bank has escaped insolvency only by 
 a substantial levy made upon its constituents. The Haas 
 Central Bank is known not to be in the strongest possible 
 position. Even the Central Banks and Endowment Funds 
 formed by Governments with pubUc money have their 
 own tales of troubles to tell. The wealthy Government 
 Bank of Prussia has had its intended beneficiaries rising 
 up in rebellion against it because it disappointed them, and 
 at last has found itself repudiated by the very societies 
 for whose benefit it was created. It is not altogether 
 easy to manage a Central Bank. 
 
 In either class of banks, as has been pointed out, the 
 aim pursued should be, steadily, though it be only gradu- 
 ally, to add to the capital in the hands of the bank. Where 
 there are shares, members should study to add to their 
 several stakes in shares ; in either type they should, if 
 possible, add to their stake in deposits. But the bank 
 as well ought to add to its collective holding by an accu- 
 mulation of reserve funds, which can scarcely proceed 
 too far ; for what the bank is called upon to proportion 
 such reserve to is not really its share capital, but its 
 liabilities. There are co-operative banks with reserve 
 funds considerably larger than their share capital. Twenty 
 per cent, of the annual surplus should invariably go to the 
 reserve. In the unlimited liability banks the need of 
 the steady creation of a reserve fund becomes absolutely 
 indispensable. But in their case — ^more especially since 
 
268 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 there is to be no incitement to the study of individual 
 pelf — the reserve fund is by standing rule made the collective 
 property of the bank, never to be shared out — ^not even 
 in the event of the dissolution of the bank, lest there be 
 a temptation to liquidate for the sake of the spoils — as has 
 in very truth happened in the case of the very first bank 
 of this kind formed, without such a rule, the necessity of 
 which was then not yet recognised. While the bank 
 exists the fund may be drawn upon to make good deficien- 
 cies. Should the bank be wound up, it is to be handed 
 over to Trustees for suitable public emplo3mient. By this 
 means, in course of time, a very respectable amount may 
 be accumulated, which cannot fail materially to strengthen 
 the position of the bank. 
 
 However, all this is at first far off, and calculated to 
 increase the capital of "guarantee" rather than the 
 ' ' working ' ' capital. It is very desirable that arrangements 
 should be come to with Joint Stock Banks, under which such 
 institutions may be found willing to m'ake advances, not 
 as an act of patronage, or of " financing," but as a simple 
 business transaction — money being given in exchange for 
 security. That will be a substantial help during the infancy 
 of the bank— ^and again in later life in times of tight money, 
 before there is a Central Bank. Bankers, when the prin- 
 ciples of co-operative banking are explained to them— 
 though such differ in detail not a little from their own — 
 as a rule quickly discern its security. And of course, in 
 addition to procuring for them a safe outlet for some little 
 superfluoias money, co-operative banking may be made 
 to act as a convenient feeder for them, bringing them more 
 regular business. 
 
 Beyond that the only safe and legitimate resource 
 for co-operative banks is that which has been in use for 
 about sixty years and found serviceable and effective. 
 Friends of the movement may well be asked to come 
 
CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. 269^ 
 
 forward and raise — or else guarantee in cash credits — 
 the first small funds — not as a gift, God forbid ! That 
 would injure the banks instead of helping them ; but in 
 as businesslike a manner as can be managed. It will not 
 be for long. Co-operative banks, once they have secured 
 a good foothold, readily ingratiate themselves. It is 
 absolutely idle, after such assistance has proved its suffi- 
 ciency during sixty years abroad, to pretend that it would 
 not be practicable in this country also, that on the contrary 
 here, in this country, more identified with business habits 
 and command of money than any other, there must be a 
 " Central Bank " to act as fairy godmother. Schulze had 
 to beg for his first cash, and so had Raiffeisen. Their 
 obtaining it has acted like the familiar bucket of water 
 \\hich in days of the old draw pumps we used to pour 
 down a new pump, in order to set the sucker at work. 
 Once the sucker was filled it drew up plenty of water 
 from the treasures of the soil. 
 
 Once such banks are estabhshed, so long as they are 
 properly conducted, they will accomplish almost any- 
 thing for which money is needed. They will provide 
 money for the individual member, they will provide money 
 for societies. It is very common, for instance, to establish 
 a dairy with the help of a co-operative bank, which pro- 
 vides the money and repays itself at the rate of so much 
 for every gallon of milk used. There is costly machinery 
 — for instance, modern threshing machines with steam or 
 electric motors — ^which the bank has bought with its 
 borrowed money, and the price of which members (and, 
 for the matter of that, also non-members, to whom it has 
 been let out at a higher rate) have repaid out of the dues 
 for the hire of it. 
 
 Only it is essential that the bank should be soundly 
 organised and well conducted. The share banks, handling 
 money which comes in and goes out, for what length 6l 
 
2.yo CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 time nobodv can foresee, will do well to limit their advances 
 in each case to a short period only, although of course 
 they may renew. The unlimited liabiUty banks, having 
 pledged the enduring hability of their members, may lend 
 out money for long terms, provided that there is sufficient 
 cash at their disposal. Either type should lend as little 
 as possible on mortgage or on whatever other security 
 locks up capital or would be inconvenient to hold, should 
 it come to be seized. It should study to make the security 
 employed personal. There should be inexorable strict- 
 ness with regard to the observance of rules and under- 
 takings, not only as to repayment of loans. And every 
 chink and crevice ought to be closed against risk.* 
 
 Albeit mortgage credit is, for banks of the order here 
 spoken of, by common consent placed on the taboo, since 
 nevertheless it is actually practised to some little extent, 
 and in at least one case has been practised with distinct 
 benefit, it may be well to say just one word about it. 
 There is not much prospect of its being put to any exten- 
 sive use among ourselves on co-operative hnes. And, 
 barring the Landschaften, which are an institution per se, 
 its general apphcation abroad has scarcely turned out 
 encouraging. The principles upon which ordinary 
 co-operative banks are built up appear of themselves to 
 conflict with its practice. 
 
 The reasons why mortgage credit is not suitable for 
 co-operative credit institutions of the type here spoken 
 of are that it locks up money for a long, it may 
 be an indefinite, time ; and that the security given, 
 if it should have to be seized, would be hkely 
 to prove, to an institution situated as a co-operative 
 credit bank is, a veritable white elephant. The co-opera- 
 
 * For Model Rules and directions how to apply them, under 
 either of the two systems here spoken of, consult my "A Co-opera- 
 tive Credit Bank Handbook." is. net. P. S. King & Son. 
 
CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. 271 
 
 live credit bank relies for its funds upon withdrawable 
 deposits and bankers' advances. These things will not 
 bear the strain of mortgage loans. To be able to grant 
 them you must have long term funds, such as the Land- 
 schaften — ^which are in a sense co-operative mortgage 
 banks — praise by what we should call debentures or land- 
 bonds, running for just as long as the loan runs. That is 
 not practicable in this country owing to our land laws and 
 the trouble connected with establishing a title. 
 
 In one case, in France, co-operative rural banks have, 
 indeed, furnished mortgage credit to good purpose — 
 fortunately without loss, because everything went well. 
 The circumstances of the case were these : — After 
 the current rate of mortgage interest had gone 
 down from the old-fashioned 5 to 3 per cent., the 
 small capitalists, lending to small proprietors, whose 
 ■demands the Credit Fonder was too " big " to care to 
 satisfy, continued — having practically a monopoly — ^to 
 insist upon the old, now extortionate, rate. They were 
 not aware that things had changed. Under such circum- 
 stances JM. Louis Durand, the founder of the French 
 Caisses rurales, considered it legitimate to intervene. His 
 societies held their deposit money — plenty of it, and 
 '■ good lying mone3' " — at 2| per cent., and began lending 
 it out, within what were considered safe limits, on mortgage 
 at 3 per cerrt. As soon as the matter became known, the 
 small capitahsts, brought to understand that money had 
 become cheaper, were not long in coming down to the 
 same rate — ^which was just what M. Durand had desired. 
 
 Mortgage credit has been a great deal abused. Hence 
 President Dupin's well-known aphorism that mortgage 
 credit " supports the debtor as the rope supports the man 
 hanged." Abuse arose because such credit was improvi- 
 dently taken for other than productive purposes ; and 
 because its continuance or determination was made 
 
272 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 dependent upon the will and pleasure of the creditor. 
 A mortgage might be contracted for a definite period. 
 But the time would come when notice could be given, 
 such as might greatly embarrass the debtor. 
 
 Co-operative mortgage credit, where it has been found 
 practicable, being organised for the benefit of borrowers, 
 has never fallen into these mistakes. It has imposed 
 conditions upon the borrower to prevent depreciation of 
 the security. But it has on principle granted the loan, 
 within the limits provided for by gradual repayment by 
 sinking iund,.quamdiu, securing possession of the credit 
 to the borrower, coupled with the right on Ms part to 
 determine it sooner, if he should so please. Under such 
 conditions the relation estabhshed between borrower and 
 lender becomes reversed. It is the borrower who decides 
 when to determine the credit. And by that very fact 
 lending by individuals — who could not be expected to 
 part with their money on such terms — becomes excluded 
 and resort to a many-headed body which does not suddenly 
 want its money back for other purposes becomes a necessity. 
 Such arrangement gives security of credit, and also very 
 much greater cheapness of repayment. 
 
 It was the Prussian Landschaften which inaugurated 
 this new type of business. Their example in this respect 
 has been widely followed by other bodies dealing in 
 mortgage credit. 
 
 However, this point being settled, the further question 
 arises : how to provide the means for granting the credit 
 — means of which there must be a command for as long 
 as the credit is to last. The Landschaften proceeded upon 
 lines very similar to those which have in another connec- 
 tion become identified with the " Raiffeisen " system, 
 that is, by pledging as security for the money to be raised 
 the entire, collective, unhmited liabiUty of their members 
 — the whole of their possessions, movable as well as 
 
CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. 273 
 
 immovable. That security was, on the face of it, so good 
 that the land bonds issued to provide the desired money 
 — being paid off by drawings — soon became a favourite 
 investment with the public, at times even in preference 
 to Government stock. 
 
 In a sense the Landschaften are co-operative organisa- 
 tions, but not fully so. Their system would be quite 
 inappropriate to this country. There is accordingly no 
 need to enter further into their organisation.* 
 
 Those who form banks will do well to take care that 
 they employ an organiser with a practical knowledge of 
 co-operative banking. He should have seen good co- 
 operative banks — such as at present we find onlj/ abroad 
 — at work. These things are not learnt by reading only. 
 One of our best organisers in India — I should say the very 
 best — whom I personally introduced to the leading authori- 
 ties on Co-operative Banking in Germany, has admitted 
 to me that what really gave him the mastery over his 
 subject, for which he has become recognised, was the 
 four weeks which he spent at Neuwied and among the 
 Raiffeisen banks established in the neighbourhood, sitting 
 at the Committee table and seeing the thing done. I do 
 not think that anyone should be employed in organising 
 who has not qualified in the same way. The object at 
 stake is the property of other, confiding people. Co- 
 operative banking is absolutely easy once you have grasped 
 its guiding principles. But as soon as, from ignorance 
 or any other cause, you depart from these, or neglect them, 
 hunt after money, and try your hand at shifty devices, 
 just to avoid some little precaution which seems irksome 
 but is necessary, the bank is apt to go wrong. And 
 wrongness in such a matter may mean a great deal. 
 
 * On this point see a special chapter in the author's " Co-opera- 
 -tive Banking." P. S. King & Son. 
 
274 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 XIII.— CO-OPERATION FOR COMMON 
 
 WORK, COMMON USE OF MACHINERY 
 
 AND OBTAINMENT OF POWER. 
 
 The same considerations which have led people to 
 co-operate in purchase and sale have very naturally also 
 prompted them to join their individual forces together 
 for the execution of work of a class which is best carried 
 out in common and, once machinery and "power" appeared 
 on the scene and came to be profitably employed in Agri- 
 culture, also for the obtainment of such. Similar 
 Co-operation is practised in Industry. We have our 
 co-operative workshops and factories ; and, as regards 
 " power," such is freely subdivided among the cutlers 
 of Sheffield — although not on co-operative hnes — for 
 the use of a number of small producers. In its most 
 elementary forms such Co-operation is probably as old 
 as the human species. Among its earhest known appUca- 
 tions — ^not to enter too fully into historical details — 
 we have the fruitieres of the Jura, using common plant, 
 the alpage societies in Switzerland pasturing members' 
 cattle in common, and the wateringues in Belgium, from 
 which the French associations syndicates , now represented 
 by close upon 6,800 societies, have sprung (about a year 
 ago there were 6,749), and which are closely related to 
 the German Deichgenossenschaften regulating the flow of 
 water and providing for surface drainage eind irrigation. 
 The lastnamed three varieties are to a large extent forced 
 upon riparian owners by law, and endowed with powers 
 as public bodies for executing their appointed functions. 
 
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY. 275 
 
 The German Deichgenossenschaften for the most part come 
 under this description ; and so do practically all Belgian 
 wateringues. In France there are some associations 
 syndicates, prescribed by law, others merely " authorised," 
 which means that, to entitle them to enforce their will in. 
 levjang contributions and executing work, they must 
 be supported by a unanimous vote of their members ; 
 and a considerable number also are organised in fuU 
 independence and therefore essentially " co-operative." 
 The work committed to these associations is surface 
 drainage, irrigation, warping, the construction of roads 
 and similar operations. Such work being frequently a 
 " one- job " business only, of short duration, not a few of 
 the associations are purely ephemeral. A considerable 
 number however are permanent, and in fact date back 
 a respectable length of time. As many as 4,900 were 
 formed before 1865. The doings of the associations are 
 deserving of notice ; but there does not appear to be 
 much scope for precisely similar work in this country. 
 In the matter of water supply, indeed, their example 
 may in some instances prove worthy of imitation, and 
 possibly also of irrigation, for the execution of which, 
 in the United States, there exist many thousands of 
 co-operative societies. There are a good many co-operative 
 societies carrying out water-supply abroad, more par- 
 ticularly in Germany. There are 35 in the province of 
 Hanover alone. And we have had some beginnings in this 
 country. There was, for instance, the Far Forest Water 
 Supply Society, which began work in 1902. And there are 
 not a few schemes in operation on what may be called co- 
 operative hues, all over England, beginning in the North 
 Riding — co-operative as among adjoining land owners — 
 which are described as having proved entirely successful. 
 In this way fairly large districts, like the Rural District of 
 Thirsk, having a population of between 3,000 and 4,000, 
 
2/6 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 have been provided, as well as small, like that of Coxwold, 
 with only 313. Mr. F. Graham Fairbank sums up the 
 advantages of Co-operation in this matter in the following 
 words : — " i. By Co-operation a sufficient sum of money 
 can be raised to enable a source of water to be tapped, 
 unquestionable as to purity, softness and quality ; 2. 
 Co-operation ensures extreme economy in maintenance 
 and management ; 3. Co-operation enables the smallest 
 -community to provide itself with a really good water 
 supply." 
 
 In France common work, more or less co-operatively 
 organised, has found other outlets for its employment. 
 During the last decade or two farmers have endeavoured 
 — they contend, with success — to protect their crops 
 against hail by firing off salvoes in rapid succession from 
 a number of guns shaped like huge gramophones. The 
 reports of such salvoes are said either to drive away the 
 hailcharged clouds altogether, or else at any rate to break 
 up the hailstones within them into perfectly innocuous 
 soft snow powder. The trouble was that it required skilled 
 bombardiers to fire off the guns ; and these men not 
 unnaturally shrank from the penance of getting up at 
 night to cannonade the sky. This difficulty has been 
 got over by the introduction of the " Electric Niagara," 
 which acts by itself. 
 
 Another application much given to common work 
 in France is that to keep off nightfrosts in vineyards by 
 fumigation. Spring frosts are deadly to vine blossoms. 
 Clouds of smoke, generated at appropriate spots, come 
 between the frost and the vines and shelter the latter. 
 This service likewise has been more scientifically organised 
 of late. Vine growers of distinct parishes form them- 
 selves into co-operative societies which provide open 
 hearths at fixed suitable points. A central point is 
 furnished with a " pagoscope," which indicates in the 
 
WORK, POHER AND MACHIXERY. 277 
 
 «vening whether there is danger of a coming frost. In 
 that case one shot is fired, to put members on their guard, 
 and a watchman is placed by the " pagoscope " to observe 
 the further movements of the thermometer. Should 
 the temperature descend to close to freezing point, a 
 second shot is fired, which at once brings out the members 
 ■due for duty to their appointed posts, where fires are 
 forthwith Ht. Each man is allotted 40 hearths to keep 
 ahght, which are placed pretty close to one another. At 
 Cadillac, for instance, there are 2,400 hearths to protect 
 an area of about 750 acres. In igii at that spot there 
 were only two alarms ; ■ the expense incurred amounted in 
 all to 8 francs per hectare, which is about 2s. 8d. per acre. 
 In Alsace, where frosts are more frequent, and a rather 
 different method is in use, the cost has been found to 
 amount to only 10 centimes (id.) per hearth an hour of 
 keeping fires alight. The " hearths " there employed 
 are movable, and are rolled into position so as to command 
 a space of 1,000 metres square each. The treatment 
 is said to be effective. In 1899, it is reported, the gardens 
 and vineyards surrounding Colmar were securely protected 
 from a frost of 8 degrees Centigrade (16° F.). The fuel 
 used is coal tar, which of course gives forth abundant 
 smoke. 
 
 The two last mentioned cases are perhaps quite 
 as much cases of common use of implements as of common 
 work, and so lead up naturally to a form of Co-operation 
 which supplies a far more fruitful theme for consideration 
 among ourselves, although very many words need not 
 be spent upon it, inasmuch as it speaks for itself. 
 
 From the early days of the fruitier es, when cheese- 
 making plant was bought in common to serve contributing 
 members in turn, common ownership of machinery and 
 implements too costly for any one small farmer to acquire 
 for himself has been much practised abroad. In Germany 
 
278 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 there are at the present time, in one Union only, 25c 
 societies of this sort, to compare with a mere handfu 
 among ourselves. 
 
 What strikes the eye most among these commor 
 machinery employment societies are the threshing machines 
 still most commonly moved by steam, but in some cases 
 already by electric power, which have been threshing 
 small farmers' corn, here, there, and everywhere, foi 
 a long time back, in France as well as in Germany. Th( 
 late Count de la Bouillerie made the formation of co-opera 
 five threshing societies his speciality in France. Ir 
 Germany, among the Raiffeisen societies — which asi 
 co-operative societies for aU manner of other purposes 
 as well as for credit — you may see such machines, with 
 engines, which have been bought with the society's credil 
 and paid for out of their own hire at so much an houi 
 to members, and a little more to non-members. 
 
 But there is machinery and there are implements of al 
 sorts, much less pretentious, down to the subsoiler and— 
 in Bohemia I found this — stubbing implements for stubbing 
 up roots of trees in newly reclaimed land — more particu- 
 larly also drills, manure distributors, reapers, mowers 
 corn screens and winnowers, rollers, clodcrushers and the 
 like. Co-operative weighing machines are very common 
 The variety of implements and apparatuses so secured 
 has indeed come to be very great. 
 
 Of late the erst promising future of steam threshing 
 has suffpred an eclipse by the advent of electricity 
 which seems to be carrying all before it. It is superseding 
 steam in this application as in all others. Another reasor 
 — appljring abroad — for the eclipse spoken of is thai 
 men letting out steam threshing machines have under th( 
 effect of co-operative competition come down so materiallj 
 with their prices as to leave practically no ground foi 
 keeping co-operative machines going. This has tolt 
 
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY. 279 
 
 against co-operative societies more especially where, as 
 has not unfrequently happened, their organisers had not 
 taken adequate care to make sure in advance of sufficient 
 custom to keep the machinery steadily employed. No 
 doubt the single owner carrying on the business as his own 
 venture is under many conditions in a more favourable 
 position for protecting himself than a society. We may 
 require threshing machines for our small holders' settle- 
 ments. For the flail, the cadenced fall of which may still 
 be frequently heard abroad, has long since gone out of 
 fashion among ourselves. But even for them it may be 
 assumed that electricity will serve preferably as motor. 
 
 The apprehension so generally given expression to 
 at the outset with regard to corhmon employment of 
 machinery, on the ground that simultaneous demand 
 might render its benefits illusory, has, generally speaking, 
 turned out a mere bogie. There is as a rule some little 
 latitude left and small men know how to arrange among 
 themselves. So much is this the case that even in a quite 
 novel departure ventured upon by an English society, the 
 Stotfold Small Holdings Society — which has purchased 
 horses as its common property, with implements to match, 
 for the use of thirty-nine occupying members, and occupy- 
 ing 141 acres in holdings, none of which would warrant 
 the keeping of horses for itself — there has been no difficulty 
 whatever about allotting the use of the teams in turns. 
 The charge made for ploughing is there 12s. an acre, for 
 drilling 5s., for cultivating 4s., and so on. And the use 
 of the horses has left a profit. There has been no loss 
 made by members failing to pay. And although there 
 was no compulsion to employ the society's horses, their 
 employment has been steady. 
 
 In respect of the more costly machinery, the use of 
 which is in great demand during certain brief seasons, 
 particular arrangements are made to provide for each 
 
28o CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 member having his fair turn. Thus in the use of threshing 
 machines the several " turns " are settled either by lot 
 or by amicable arrangement, on the understanding that 
 at the time of the great rush, after harvest, the machine 
 is to be let out only for a very limited time, members to 
 be served later on in the same order — ^unless they volun- 
 tarily modify it — when the rush is over. 
 
 In respect of steam or motor ploughs a rather more 
 elaborate arrangement prevails. Members are required 
 to give notice by a certain date of the extent of land that 
 they propose to have ploughed — thus, say, if the employ- 
 ment is to be the breaking up of cloverley, by ist May, 
 otherwise by ist July, particulars to be given at the time 
 as to whether it is to be for ploughing up stubble or furrow- 
 ing for autumn com, or else for spring com or roots. To 
 each particular operation a certain limited time is allotted, 
 so as not to wrong the members succeeding in the order 
 fixed for the season, whether it be by ballot or by amicable 
 arrangement, or by a mixture of the two, such as is some- 
 times resorted to, so as to give the later customer of one 
 season the chance of becoming an early one in the next. 
 To the substance of his notice every member is bound. 
 He will have to get a certain acreage of land ploughed 
 or else pay for it. 
 
 In the purchase and employment of implements, or 
 whatever be the instrumenta muta — or, as in the case of 
 Stotfold, the instrumenta semivocalia — employed, co-opera- 
 tive societies will do weU to bear in mind that, although 
 such articles may perfectly well be purchased with the 
 use of credit — ^we have had instances of this also in this 
 country, for instance, at Muskham, in Nottinghamshire, 
 where a reaper was bought with money borrowed from 
 a bank and paid off out of the receipts— it is essential that 
 this should be done only in cases in which there is a certain 
 prospect of the machinery repaying itself out of its own 
 
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY. zSr 
 
 use in comparatively little time. And provision should 
 be made for its doing so. For you caimot give such 
 appliances a long Ufe. Use is likely to wear them more 
 rapidly than in a single person's possession. New inven- 
 tions may come in. And there is always the chapter of 
 accidents to reckon with. The society should place itself 
 upon the safe side. Small farmers are not as a rule 
 particularly flush of cash ; and accordingly resort to 
 credit, such as has been instanced in the case of Raiffeisen 
 societies — ^which are in an exceptionally favourable position 
 for the purpose — is frequently suggested. However, credit 
 is not the only, nor perhaps the ideal way of providing the 
 first funds. Members will do well to raise at any rate a 
 certciin proportion of the capital required among them- 
 seh'es. There may be difficulty in this. Nevertheless an 
 effort will have to be made. In some cases it is held that 
 there should be some proportionality in the contributions 
 to share capital. In such the number or value of shares 
 to be taken up is apportioned either to the acreage occupied 
 or else to the amount of work to be done. When it comes 
 to motor cars, of which we shall still have to speak, the 
 outlay is often distributed among members according to 
 the weight of goods that they undertake to have carried. 
 In prudence a society wiU have to ascertain before- 
 hand whether there is Ukely to be sufficient demand for 
 the article to be acquired. Emplojnnent of such need not 
 necessarily be limited to members — although members 
 must, if there be competing demand, in any case be assured 
 precedence. However, employment by . outsiders may 
 very well be called in to help to pay for the machinery. 
 But they ought to be charged at a higher rate than 
 members. Economy may be furthermore practised — as 
 often enough it is on the Continent — by utilising the power 
 employed for the principal machine for the moving of 
 others. Com cleaning appUances are often attached to 
 
282 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 threshing machines, or chaff cutters, grist mills, citcular 
 saws, and other appliances, and of course harrows, culti- 
 vators and rollers to power ploughs. It need not surely 
 "be specially urged that proper care should be taken of the 
 article and, if it be a machine, it ought not to be entrusted 
 to other hands than those of the society's machinist, 
 whereas smaller implements want to be examined after 
 use. 
 
 The employment of the machinery and implements here 
 referred to will not only enable small farmers to carry out 
 their agricultural work better than they could do other- 
 -wise, so as to yield them better material results, but, by 
 economising labour, also to occupy more land than they 
 ■could otherwise take charge of. 
 
 Co-operative steam ploughing, neglected in this 
 country, is freely practised both in Germany and in France 
 and has in general given satisfaction. (I have never 
 come across the co-operative employment of a power 
 digger.) In Germany there are at present about forty 
 steam or motor ploughing societies at work, enabhng even 
 ■occupiers of comparatively small farms to benefit by the 
 improved and cheaper work of the power plough, as 
 compared with the team plough. A set of steam plough 
 tackle is considered not to be economically applicable upon 
 an area of less than 2,050 acres. The employment of such 
 ploughs is unfortunately further limited to level land only, 
 or land with only a shght gradient. But on strong land the 
 absence of pressure from the tread of the teams, coupled 
 with the greater evenness of the work produced, are 
 appreciated as advantages. The value of shares in a 
 society as a matter of fact varies as much as between 
 50 and 2,500 marks (or shillings). Where shares are 
 smallest members' holdings in them are most nicely pro- 
 portioned to the size of their farms, down to reckoning 
 by the very hectare (about 2| acres). Members are as 
 
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY. 283 
 
 a rule called upon to provide the necessary labour and 
 fuel, to bring up the water required and to move the 
 machine one way or another with their teams. However, 
 there is in this respect no rule of universal application. 
 Care is always taken to keep a good machinist in charge 
 of the machine who, in addition to his fixed salary, is often 
 €nough allowed a commission per acre ploughed. To 
 avoid unnecessary breakages members are called upon to 
 remove any big stones which may be unearthed in the 
 course of ploughing, before the time for the next ploughing 
 comes round. The rates charged for ploughing vary 
 according to soil, depth and neighbourhood. There are 
 different rates charged for shallow and for deep ploughing, 
 for ploughing four, or six or seven furrows at a time, and 
 ploughing deeper than 10 inches or so is generally forbidden 
 for four-share ploughs. Some societies also vary the 
 price according to the season, charging less during slack 
 periods. There are hkewise distinct tariffs for harrowing, 
 cultivating and rolling. Some associations have a rather 
 substantial capital invested in buildings for housing the 
 machinery when idle. 
 
 In France the steam ploughing movement is only in 
 its infancy, but so far as it has advanced it has given satis- 
 faction. Among the ploughing associations formed is one 
 at Soissons, which was constituted only in May, 1910, 
 by ten members — nine of whom are farmers, occupying • 
 among them about 5,500 acres of land — with a share 
 capital of 100,000 francs (£4,000). The plant secured 
 consists of two 80-horse-power Fowler engines, 650 metres 
 of cable, one four-share and one six-share plough, a 
 harrow, a cultivator, a roller, and the necessary watercarts. 
 The acreage ploughed within the first five months was 
 1,125 acres, at the rate of about loj acres a day. There 
 are six men attached to the plough. The work is, as in 
 Germany, divided into three periods — stubbling, early 
 
284 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 ploughing and late ploughing — so as to give every member 
 his turn at each. The hirer of the plough provides the 
 fuel and carries the water. So satisfactory were the 
 results considered to be that ten more members joined 
 in 1911, providing another 100,000 francs share capital 
 for a second tackle. Last September (191 1) another 
 society was formed on the same lines at Plessis-Belleville- 
 in the Oise. Occupation of at least 62J acres of land and 
 subscription of the requisite share of the collective capital 
 entitle to membership. The rate fixed for ploughing varies, 
 according to depth, from 24 to 28 and 32 francs per acre. 
 The charges for harrowing and rolling are only nominal. 
 
 One specific employment of machinery in common 
 which has already met with particular favour in this 
 country is that of grist milling — not by members using a 
 common grist mill or corn crusher in tums; but by the 
 society setting up and working a grist-mill, from which 
 members can obtain the grist required at, of course, a 
 lower price for the grinding than they would have to pay 
 to a grist miller grinding as his own venture. The popu- 
 larity of such milling in this country is in great part 
 attributable to the increased keeping of pigs for fattening. 
 The miUs so set up will crush any species of com, including 
 maize. So satisfied are members with the results obtained 
 that there is already talk of flour milling being taken up. 
 •So long as that is practised on distributive Unes- — such as 
 grist miUing really is — it is likely to give satisfaction, 
 wherever there is sufficient demand. Co-operative baking 
 in the same way — among agriculturists — remains for the 
 present still confined to foreign countries. 
 
 The use of Co-operation has also been impressed for 
 collective forwarding of goods — and it may likewise be 
 of passengers — by motor cars. One may certainly wish 
 the experiments in progress to be crowned with success. 
 For, notwithstanding the wide extension of our network 
 
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY 285 
 
 of railways — supplemented, it may be, here and there 
 by " hght railways " — the want of cheap and convenient 
 means of transport to connect rural parishes with railway 
 stations has been greatly felt. Goods have to be carted 
 or carried, in some instances over long distances. That 
 means expense and trouble, more particularly since such 
 goods can under ordinary circumstances be only to a very- 
 trifling degree bulked, for economy. To remedy this^ 
 state of things by the employment of motor cars seems 
 at first sight an easy process. But it is by no means as 
 easy as it looks. There is some difficulty in organising 
 the service, and also in ensuring sufficient, and sufficiently 
 steady, support. In Germany agricultural motor societies- 
 have experienced considerable difficulty in making both 
 ends meet, even though in some instances an entire district 
 has been made tributary, various localities being called 
 upon to contribute to the share capital. They would not 
 have arrived even at this moderate measure of success^ 
 had there not been an agreement, more generous than 
 businesslike, with the Post Office (for carrying parcels) or 
 grants from some humane authority or other. The result 
 during the first year or two, or even three or four years,, 
 has generally been a loss. 
 
 The credit of having first introduced motor car service- 
 into this country belongs to Mr. C. J. Fairfax Cholmely, 
 of Brandsby in Yorkshire. His society (at Brandsby) 
 employs two motor waggons traveUing between Brandsby 
 and Easingwold railway station. (It used to be ToUerton 
 railway station, rather a longer distance, of 11^ miles.) 
 The success obtained, in spite of some difficulties, is in a 
 great measure due to the friendly co-operation given by 
 the North Eastern Railway Company. (In the Teme 
 Valley the Great Western Railway Company has met a 
 similar scheme in the same helping way.) The society 
 has provided the depot and organises the traffic as the- 
 
^86 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Railway company's agent, accepting also outsiders' goods 
 for forwarding, to produce bulk. It began service in 
 October, 1904, and since the substitution of Easingwold 
 for Tollerton, in 1906, runs its two motors twice a day. 
 The Teme Valley scheme has been less successful, but may 
 prove useful as a suggestive pioneer. Similar services 
 have been set on foot between Gloucester and Malvern 
 ^with a passenger service), Caenby Comer and Lincoln 
 (or Grantham), and at Otterbum. The lastnamed service 
 had to be abandoned on account of the mountainous 
 -character of the countrj/. Thus far the Brandsby service 
 appears to have proved the most successful, which may 
 be due to good management. 
 
 The facilities recently conceded by the Postmaster- 
 General for rural telephonic service create a fresh tempting 
 -opportunity for' co-operative action, which one may hope 
 will be taken advantage of. Farmers in this country, who 
 have long been accustomed to faking entirely for them- 
 selves, may not at once discern the great business value 
 of telephonic communication. However, those who have 
 once learnt its use — as shown in Denmark and to a still 
 greater extent in the United States — are not likely to 
 belittle its benefits. It places, so to put it, the farmer in 
 the midst of Mark Lane. or the Meat Market, and brings 
 him into touch with all from whom he may want to buy 
 or to whom he may desire to sell. The responses thus far 
 made to the Agricultural Organisation Society, which is 
 vigorously bestirring itself to induce farmers to combine 
 for common telephone service, and has obtained from the 
 Postmaster General a promise of favourable consideration 
 for co-operative telephone schemes, holds out a fair 
 prospect of the telephone soon becoming as freely used in 
 the service of Agriculture in England as it is in America. 
 
 However, the palm of importance under our present 
 point of view is unquestionably due to the co-operative 
 
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY. 287 
 
 •employment of electric power — and, it may be, as a 
 -corollary, electric lighting — of which British Agricultural 
 Co-operation as yet knows nothing. We may employ 
 water — even, it may be, steam, although I know of no 
 such cases. In Bewdley, in Worcestershire, indeed, 
 water has been co-operatively laid on, temporarily at 
 any rate, smd it is co-operatively employed for sheep 
 dipping. Germany, on the other hand, possessed on ist 
 April, 1911, as many as 2,700 electric supply works in 
 connection with Agriculture, supplying at least 11,000 
 parishes with power or light, and 698 new works were then 
 in process of construction. Of the collective number 510 
 were co-operative. The roll has since been lengthened 
 and is in fact being added to every week. For there is a 
 general call for electric power, since its advantages have 
 come to be appreciated. In Herr Rabe's words, used at 
 a recent congress, the " electric bacillus " is at work. 
 
 The matter is indeed not all advantage. There are 
 serious difficulties to be confronted, which will in every 
 case have to be met by forethought and careful prepara- 
 tion of the ground. The two main difficulties are these : 
 that the demand for power (or hght) is likely to be very 
 much smaller in agricultural districts than in industrial, 
 composed of very limited individual requirements scattered 
 over a rather wide area ; and that what little electricity 
 is wanted will all be wanted at the same time — and that 
 a comparatively brief time. 
 
 We old men remember what a progress it was con- 
 sidered to be when steam was introduced as a handmaid 
 to Agriculture, to thresh our crops and later to plough our 
 fields. However, by the side of electric power, developed 
 as it now is — and with further useful developments in 
 near prospect — steam can appear only as a bungler. It 
 takes up space ; it cannot be worked except by skilled 
 and trained attendants, and is exacting in the ancillary 
 
28S CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 services of water and fuel supply. It takes a long timer- 
 being got ready for action and some time once more to- 
 get back to rest ; it is charged with dangers of various. 
 sorts ; it is cumbrous and difficult to move ; its service- 
 is not readily adaptable for moving those smaller imple- 
 ments which are so largely in request in the present day 
 as economising hand labour ; it requires shafts and. 
 belting, which are apt to get into the way ; it must mean 
 waste, because you cannot stop it suddenly, nor apportion 
 the power used precisely to the particular employment ;. 
 a ten horse-power engine will mean expenditure of ten 
 horse steam power, even though the job require only two. 
 Electric power presents none of these difficulties. It 
 is easy to move, easy to work, easy to clean. For its 
 lighter employment you may have a small motor, such 
 as a man and a boy may carry easily on a hand-barrow 
 or shove along on a wheelbarrow. A two horse motor 
 weighs under two hundredweight. An electric motor 
 takes up little space and may be fixed up anywhere, down 
 on the floor — without any special foundation — or against 
 the wall or up against the ceiling, screwed to one of the 
 joists. In the Pomeranian " cornhouse " a ten horse 
 motor stands fixed under the stairs, altogether out of the 
 way. An electric motor is easily worked, by an old man- 
 or a sharp boy. There is no skilled" labour required. It. 
 scarcely ever calls for repairs. There is no waste of power 
 in its employment or waste of time. Apply a ten horse 
 power engine to a one horse power -job, it will expend 
 only one horse power, and that is all you will have to pay 
 for. Turn off the current and there is no expenditure 
 whatever. It ploughs better and it threshes better and 
 more economically ; it does everything better than steam, 
 because its movement is thoroughly even. Germair 
 farmers have found that that means money for them ; for 
 electric power-threshed corn fetches more than steam 
 
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY. 289 
 
 threshed. Wherever electric power has acclimatised itself 
 the old-fashioned horsegear has been cast aside. And an 
 ■electric motor is always ready to work at once. Even 
 an electric threshing apparatus may be got ready for work 
 in two hours, which is an important consideration in rainy 
 summers. There is no danger of fire in it. No more is 
 there loss of power by transmission. For you can move 
 your motor, if it is portable, right up to its work — up to 
 the chaffcutter, or the liquid manure pump, or the cake 
 mill, the corn screen, or the grist mill. It is such handi- 
 Tiess of the motor which makes its service so highly appre- 
 ciated. You can move it anywhere — up to the cornloft 
 — where among other things it has been found most useful 
 ■for air-drpng damp corn — or out into the garden. And, like 
 the steam hammer — which we used to hear of with wonder 
 fifty years ago — it will do " anything," from breaking up 
 oilcake to lifting a whole load of hay or corn out of a wagon 
 Tip to the loft. And wherever there is enough work for 
 it to do, and circumstances are not altogether adverse, 
 you will find it cheaper than steam as well. There is not 
 a farmer who has employed electric power on his farm 
 who would care to give it up, even though — as happens 
 in some cases, where its use has been resorted to rather 
 for the sake of convenience than of economy — it still cost 
 him more than it should. There is a perfect consensus 
 of feeling on this point. 
 
 Under such circumstances it cannot be held surprising 
 that — abroad at any rate — the problem how to render 
 electric power serviceable to Agriculture, has occupied 
 agricultural minds for a long time back — something like 
 nearly twenty years. Eagerness to discover means for 
 following in Industry's wake was in Germany, which has 
 unquestionably taken the lead in this matter, not a little 
 -whetted by the daily increasing scarcity of farm labour, 
 -which had become the standing crux of German Agricul- 
 
290 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 ture, affecting, as it happens, more particularly the mediunt 
 peasantry. For, although a larger land owner might 
 without serious difficulty engage a gang of twenty or thirty, 
 or else fifty or sixty " harvesters " — as we should caU 
 them — from " Waterpoland " or Russia, on his property, 
 the peasant (or yeoman), who requires only two, would 
 have little chance of providing himself from the same 
 quarter. For these gentlemen are of gregarious habits. 
 
 Unfortunately, the problem was found to present 
 serious difficulties, more particularly in the early days 
 here spoken of. Wherever there was a supply of electric 
 power readily available, by reason of the proximity of 
 industrial establishments capable of suppljdng such, large 
 landowners, who could afford the expense, were found here 
 and there willing to take advantage of the opportunity — 
 and did not regret it. However, such cases were rare. And 
 they left the small farmer altogether out in the cold. The 
 main difficulty was that of transmission over wide dis- 
 tances. 
 
 The matter assumed an altogether different aspect 
 when high tension oscillating or polyphase current was 
 brought into use, which admits of the transmission of 
 electric current over 60 or 100 miles without any per- 
 ceptible loss of power. The opportunity to enlist agricul- 
 tural custom seemed to some supply works too good to 
 be neglected. Some enterprising supply companies at 
 once laid themselves out for cultivating the new chentele 
 also, by transmitting current at any rate to rather populous 
 rural districts. Thus the Electric Tramway Company of 
 Hanover carried its service out into the surrounding 
 country to supply no fewer than 108 rural parishes. 
 
 However, once more, such cases proved rare. Rural 
 populations cannot help being sparse, and their demand 
 is only comparatively moderate — and intermittent to boot. 
 There are farmers situated so near to industrial supply 
 
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY. 291 
 
 works that their service could be readily tacked on to the 
 industrial. And, under the growing desire to employ 
 electric power and light, such opportunities were gladly 
 made use of. There is no Co-operation in this, because 
 none is required. Arrangements of this kind are common 
 in industrially highly developed districts such as parts- 
 of the Kingdom of Saxony and of Rhineland. Surely 
 there must be not a few districts also in this country in 
 which they would be practicable. 
 
 But the fact had to be faced that the general require- 
 ments of Agriculture are not to be satisfied in this way. 
 Electric supply companies could not be expected to pro- 
 vide separately for what was required in Agriculture for 
 the two reasons already stated, namely, sparseness of 
 population and irregularity of demand. Demand comes 
 in with a vehement impetus when there is corn to be 
 threshed. During all the rest of the year it is at present 
 small, but nevertheless exacting enough to require supply to 
 be kept open. Things are rather better where there is an 
 industrial undertaking joined on to the farm, as happens 
 frequently enough in Germany, where there are agricul- 
 tural distilleries, mills, brown-coal mines and the like. 
 
 The only solution of the difficulty of course was found 
 to be by Co-operation. There must be combination 
 among consumers, and — this is even more important- 
 there must be identity of interest established in the main 
 — it need not be absolute — between consumers and pro- 
 ducers. The difficulty about money, which of course 
 arose, would justify the bringing in of non-consuming 
 shareholders. But consumption without a share in the 
 production there could not be, otherwise than in quite 
 exceptional cases, where there is no other means of pro- 
 ducing " bulk." Only in such way were the interests of 
 production and consumption, which under the peculiar 
 conditions of the case at first sight seem so irreconcilable,. 
 
392 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 to be brought into unison. It does not follow from this 
 that the legal form taken by the combination must neces- 
 sarily be that of a co-operative society, so long as the 
 essentials of Co-operation are observed. 
 
 Of course mistakes were made — and had to be paid 
 for. Between 1901 and 1911 no fewer than thirty-eight 
 electric supply societies came to grief. That means a 
 good deal in the early stages. For societies at first formed 
 only slowly, at the rate of one, two, three a year. It was 
 only in 1908 that they began to multiply fast. As is quite 
 usual in co-operative productive enterprises, people began 
 with too little money — ^which proved all the more serious 
 a mistake as loan capital was then difficult to obtain. Co- 
 operative Central Banks wisely made it a rule to abstain 
 rigorously from such business which, in addition to in- 
 volving risk, would have locked up money for an indefinite 
 time. And Joint Stock Banks for the same reason looked 
 askance at the security offered. The public Savings Banks 
 — which in Germany, unlike our own, make a point of 
 investing what money they can (at a higher rate of interest) 
 in fructifying outlay — refused to make advances except 
 to societies based upon unlimited liability. But electricity 
 societies, although willing enough to make the Uability of 
 members, according to German custom, tenfold and more 
 of the value of the shares, shrank from giving the unlimited 
 -security asked for. In the next place societies at first 
 failed, accountably enough, to make sure of adequate 
 and dependable custom. At members' request wires 
 were laid to farms a mile or two distant from anywhere 
 ■else, at a cost out of proportion to the return. In the 
 third place districts to be served were made too small. 
 There were reasons for this. In some parts of Germany 
 — for instance, in Hanover, which is a very active district 
 in this as in other respects, having now 121 electric supply 
 societies within it, and where old independent " Saxon " 
 
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY. 293 
 
 habits survive — people prefer having a small concern of 
 their " very own " to throwing in their lot with hundreds 
 or it may be thousands of comrades. And, above all 
 ihings, the agents of electrical engineering companies, 
 being keen upon business and not in the least concerned 
 about subsequent commercial success, canvassed for orders 
 ior small plants with thoroughly German persistency, con- 
 firming their victims' preference for small concerns. There 
 was at that time a serious lack of independent expert advice, 
 and as a matter of course technical canons were much sinned 
 against. This lastnamed fault has been very effectively 
 remedied by the organisation of distinct technical depart- 
 ments, with highly capable men at their head, on the part 
 of Co-operative Unions, which alone, of course, are cap- 
 able of undertaking the work of advice and supervision. 
 The Prussian Province of Saxony, more in particular, has 
 distinguished itself by paying particular attention to this 
 matter and securing a most capable expert adviser in the 
 person of Herr Vietze. The result is aheady observable 
 in the success of the movement generally in that district, 
 half of which is either already provided or else being 
 provided with electric power, and in which eighteen main 
 central stations were set up in as many months. There are, 
 no doubt, some small electric concerns which answer very 
 well. However, generally speaking, it is found that larger 
 societies, with districts extending over areas with a radius 
 of twenty, thirty, or forty miles, are the most economical 
 and the most successful. Such societies provide a broad 
 foundation to work upon and are sure to combine within 
 them a variety of interests, aiding and supplementing one 
 another and so to some extent correcting the irregularity 
 and intermittency inseparable from agricultural custom- 
 Industry putting in its claim where Agriculture fails, and 
 hghting supplementing the demand for power. Their 
 membership also is necessarily considerable, -going up to 
 
294 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 three thousand and more. That means " bulk." An 
 analysis of such membership shows, among other things — 
 this point ought to be interesting from our point of view — 
 that the demand for electric power by no means comes 
 solely, or even mainly, from owners or occupiers of large 
 farms. There are many such. But it is the small men 
 who make up the main demand — small men down to such 
 petty peasemts as, in French societies, combine, not 
 merely to purchase electric power in common, but even 
 to keep their own Uttle one or two horse power electric 
 motor in common, since one holding does not afford 
 sufficient employment for it. At Massow, in Pomerania, 
 of the 32,000 or so acres for which the society caters, 
 about 28,000 acres are occupied by peasantry. In the 
 Birnbaum Society, in the Province of Posen, there are 
 118 five horse power motors distributed over fourteen 
 parishes. Five horse power motors do not indicate large 
 properties. In the Prussian Province of Saxony, Herr 
 Rabe, chairman of the provincial Co-operative Union 
 (which embraces also some adjoining small independent 
 duchies), has designated the peasantry as " the main 
 support of the electric power undertaking." These men 
 find substantial advantage in using electric power — and 
 light in addition, as a convenience — on account of its 
 cheapness and its rendering them independent. Among 
 the largest societies there is the pioneer one at Lottin, 
 which has customers more than sixteen miles from its 
 central power station, and which, with the help of its 
 300 horse power water power and 180 horse power steam 
 engines, supplies 102 customers, employing among them 
 150 electromotors, with 1,115 horse power of power and 
 light for 5,000 incandescent lamps. The total area served 
 covers 26,000 acres, and the entire length of cable em- 
 ployed is 85 miles. There are twenty transformer stations, 
 to convert the high tension current into low, for use as 
 
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY. 295 
 
 driving force. The Besswitz society caters for a district 
 of 50,000 acres, extending twenty-two miles from the 
 electric power station, having a cable length of 138 miles 
 and supplying 180 motors and 5,000 lamps. The Birn- 
 baum society covers an area of over 100,000 acres, com- 
 prising five small towns, by means of cables 200 miles 
 long. On the other hand, there are societies for one parish 
 only. The Province of Saxony, which may be considered 
 the most advanced in this matter, favours fairly large 
 districts. Hanover, on the other hand, is altogether in 
 favour of small. However, it secures the effect of large- 
 ness by keeping these small societies combined in large 
 federations, which act as wholesale purveyors of current. 
 
 The organisation of small societies is generally in- 
 fluenced by a perfectly natural desire to turn local water 
 power to account. Generally speaking, water power is 
 the cheapest generator of electricity. And accordingly 
 people are already providently taking stock of what water 
 power there is and making sure of it as a means of fore- 
 stalling capitalist engrossers. With such an object in 
 view the Central Co-operative Agricultural Society of 
 Pomerania is having a register prepared of all water power 
 in the province. However, water power is not in every 
 case to be depended upon. It may prove insufficient. It 
 may run dry. And above all things it may require a 
 heavy prehminary outlay to make it employable. But 
 then it is not by any means the only generator coming^ 
 into account. Steam is employed in places with distinct 
 advantage. 
 
 In course of time people learnt how to organise. 
 They learnt to take stock of the consuming power present 
 in every district and to be careful to form societies only 
 where there was plenty, with a prospect of increase. They 
 learnt furthermore to make sure of what custom they 
 wanted by requiring intending consumers to bind them- 
 
396 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 selves for a long time in advance — ^in some cases up to 
 fifteen years — ^not merely as an incident to membership, 
 but by enforceable contract as individual customers. One 
 large society in Pomerania — ^which province has, under the 
 vigorous incitement of Herr von Hertzberg-Lottin, taken 
 the lead in the movement — obliged members to guarantee 
 a consumption of at least eight kilowatt hours (that is, 
 Board of Trade units) per acre (five kilowatt hours to the 
 Prussian morgen). To prevent members fixing the 
 minimum too low, some societies charge a higher price 
 for what is not guaranteed. 
 
 Next, organisers are now careful to make sure of the 
 presence of sufficient share capital. People are generally 
 overfond nowadays of embarking in enterprises on credit. 
 The mistake of this has been very distinctly found out in 
 electrical undertakings. The leaders of the movement 
 have accordingly laid it down as a standing rule that at 
 the very least 25 per cent, of the capital required should 
 be provided by share capital. The consideration for 
 adequate funds, coupled with a provident regard for 
 sufficient and regular consumption, has in course of time 
 led to the development of the movement in some cases 
 on other than co-operative Unes, making a public service 
 of electric supply. There is no occasion to explain at 
 length that, as in credit, great advantage has been dis- 
 covered to lie in the commingling of various consuming 
 interests in the same venture, enhsting on the one hand 
 public service and on the other industrial enterprise in 
 the same undertaking as agricultural, so as not only to 
 increase bulk, but at the same time also to equahse demand 
 by making one class of demand to dovetail into the other. 
 At a little station on the Prussian railway line which 
 carries passengers from the Hoek inland an instance of 
 this was to be seen as long as something like twenty years 
 ago, the electric power required for a co-operative dairy 
 
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY. zgr 
 
 set up by immigrants from the Palatinate being employed 
 at night for lighting the station. Where a large district 
 is served there are sure to be small towns dotted about 
 it, too small or unenterprising, it may be, to embark upon 
 providing their own electric light, but perfectly wiUing 
 to join in a larger undertaking. The district supplied by 
 the society of Lottin, in Pomerania, comprises two towns ; 
 that of Birnbaum, in Posen, five. Then there are railway 
 stations and other pubUc establishments to be supphed 
 with light ; also industrial establishments scattered over 
 the area — and where they are not yet, they may be set up, 
 once electric power is provided. This point should possess 
 interest for us in view of our growing-up Garden Cities 
 with their factories. Wherever large districts have 
 been adopted it has been sought to enhst the support 
 of such various institutions. And to be able to do so- 
 the more effectually, and also to provide sufficient funds, 
 the assistance of public authorities has been applied for 
 and obtained. Thus in Pomerania — which has gone the 
 fastest ahead in this matter — the Province supphes one- 
 third of the capital — ^it has actually voted £425,000— on 
 condition of the." Circles," that is the smaller administra- 
 tive districts, contributing another third, and the Society, 
 which at its central power station becomes a contractor 
 for power, foregoing any profit whatever upon such supply. 
 The service is to be self-supporting and nothing more, 
 paying a moderate interest on capital but nothing beyond. 
 Such assistance by public bodies is supposed to help 
 in some manner in overcoming two obstacles which, by 
 its very character, purely co-operative organisation 
 appears unavoidably to oppose to electric supply. One of 
 these is the unchallengeable " one man, one vote " — 
 independently of the difference in holdings in shares — 
 and the other the danger arising from the right which 
 every member possesses to withdraw from the society. 
 
298 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 taking his shares with him. That is one reason why the 
 promise to take a certain supply is enforced by contract, 
 and not merely as an incident to membership. The 
 German law, as it happens, permits societies to mitigate 
 such danger further by extending the term for notice of 
 withdrawal to two years, after which members remain 
 liable for another two years, with the proviso added that, 
 should the society be wound up within six months after 
 a member's retirement, such retirement shall become void. 
 The " one man, one vote " is not so easily got rid of. It 
 is inconvenient in a great capitahst enterprise with very 
 unequal stakes — such as are in any case unavoidable and 
 appear specially called for in some societies by the pro- 
 vision laid down that members shall take up shares in 
 exact proportion to their acreage — at the rate, to quote 
 one instance, of is. 7d. per acre occupied. That is bound 
 to bring about a striking inequality of pecuniary interest 
 embarked. The large number of various interests enrolled 
 and the supervision exercised by the authorities — which 
 have a stake in the concern and which as a matter of 
 course impose their own conditions securing to them an 
 effective say — to a great extent ehminate the danger of 
 ochlocratic unsteadiness. But, although pecuniary help 
 from pubhc authorities is freely asked for — in France 
 it is sought to make the Credit Agricole available for the 
 purpose — the majority of electric supply societies continue 
 genuinely co-operative. 
 
 The necessity of having good expert guidance is now 
 generally understood and provided for as well as circum- 
 stances permit. 
 
 There is a difference of opinion as to the most desirable 
 ■value of shares. Prima facie large shares appear by far 
 the most desirable. However, the object of the societies 
 avowedly is to provide for small men, who are in many 
 districts in a considerable majority, and from whom a 
 
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY. 299 
 
 large contribution in share money could not be looked for. 
 It has accordingly been recognised that there must be 
 diversity. Shares now vary as much as between £25 — 
 in one exceptional case even £^0 — and £i or £2. 
 
 There is a difference of opinion also upon another 
 point of elementary importance, namely, whether a co- 
 operative society should manufacture its own electric 
 current or take it on from others. The original idea was 
 to do ever3d:hing for oneself. There was, as a rule, the 
 water power ; why should it run to waste ? The large 
 Pomeranian societies, as already observed, manufacture 
 their own current with the help of powerful machinery 
 and are quite satisfied' with the result. So is the society 
 of Neuve Maison (Aisne) in France, working on a smaller 
 scale since 1905. However, a power station necessarily 
 means additional capital — where capital is not over- 
 plentiful : from 25 to 30 per cent, of the entire outlay. 
 And it means also a considerable responsibility and a large 
 staff of employees to superintend. Accordingly the 
 dominating idea now is — most distinctly insisted upon in 
 the Province of Saxony, and formally endorsed by a recent 
 Congress of Electrical Engineers assembled at Brunswick 
 — that the generation of power should be left to capitalist 
 enterprise and that societies should be content to take 
 their power from capitahst bodies, under pecuhar safe- 
 guards, which are held to recommend themselves. Thus 
 supply companies with which a contract is entered into 
 are called upon to bind themselves not to raise the price 
 of power or hght (the rate for light is twice that for power) 
 for a term of, say, thirty years, but to reduce it whenever 
 it can be shown that by reason of new inventions or other 
 favourable chamges production has become cheapened. 
 To decide upon the latter point in cases of disagreement 
 provision is made for the nomination of a board of 
 arbitration, the composition of which is particularly 
 
300 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 laid down in the contract. In the majority of 
 districts people go further still, and object to co-opera- 
 tive societies even undertaking the maintenance of the 
 central supply stations, which act as wholesale distributors- 
 of power received from the generating station. From the 
 main central station the current is distribiited over the 
 district served by means of. wires leading to the local 
 stations, where transformers are at work, to convert the 
 current for practical use from high tension into low. 
 However, the leaders of the movement in Prussian Saxony, 
 who certainly speak with authority, strongly maintain the 
 preferableness of keeping the main central station in the 
 hands of the society, which course has in their own case 
 answered thoroughly well. 
 
 On these lines the co-operative use of electric power 
 and light has spread out over Germany with astonishing 
 rapidity. The movement began only in 1897. Until 
 1905 societies formed by one or two in a year. In 1905 
 there were three formed, then seven, then twenty. At 
 the present time, as observed, there are, among a total 
 number of 2,700 electrical supply institutions, with 698 
 recruits preparing for service, no fewer than 510 co-opera- 
 tive. 
 
 The result is generally considered entirely satisfactory. 
 Of course, wherever there has been mismanagement, 
 where adequate consumption has not been provided for, 
 nor a sufficiency of working funds, matters were bound to 
 miscarry. But wherever due regard has been paid to 
 business principles the result is good. There is greater 
 convenience. There is greater cheapness. And there is 
 better work. Electricity has been found cheaper not only 
 than steam, but also than benzol. The saving on threshing 
 is put at 2jd. per German hundredweight, which corres- 
 ponds to 110.231 lbs. avoirdupois. The corn threshed 
 under its even movement is said to fetch from 3 to 5 per 
 
WORK POWER AND MACHINERY. 3or 
 
 cent, more than corn threshed by steam, from 8 to i& 
 per cent, more than corn threshed by horsegear, and from 
 i8 to 20 per cent, more than corn threshed with a iiail. Deep 
 ploughing, so it is contended, could not be carried out with 
 anything like the same even thoroughness without the use 
 of electric power, let alone that the motor will pass where 
 the steam engine could not, by reason of its weight, and 
 that electric power is applicable as motor on inclines too 
 steep for steam to work upon. There are some hitches 
 still about supply and distribution. But these, so it is 
 hoped, will be removed, once the proposed mutual relations 
 among societies come to be established, which are to 
 permit societies with excess of power to pass on such to 
 others which are in want of it. And one great gain achieved 
 is that the trouble of undersupply of labour has been 
 satisfactorily brought to an end. Electric power has 
 taken the place of hands missing. It has also rendered 
 such farm work as must still be supplied by hand more 
 acceptable to those employed. Men and maids no longer 
 refuse to undertake it on the score of its severity, because 
 the hard work is now done by the machine, which they 
 simply set in motion. There is, of course, great variety 
 in the machinery used. On large farms it is usual to 
 employ two motors — ^it may be more still — a large one, 
 of i8, 20, or 25 horse power, for threshing, ploughing, and 
 the like ; and a small one, of 2 or 5 horse power, down 
 to even one, for chaff cutting, liquid msmure pumping, 
 breaking cake, and so on. ' A one horse motor is not 
 unfrequently used to pump up water for irrigation. On 
 sinall holdings there can be only one motor ; but that 
 is valued as a boon. It makes the smallholder's own 
 work go farther and enables him to do things which with- 
 out it he could not have attempted. 
 
 One would think that in this country, so familiar 
 with machinery, the original leader of the world in matters 
 
302 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 of mechanical power and its application, there ought to 
 be room for the employment of the power which our 
 neighbours in Germany have found to constitute such a 
 valuable acquisition for Agriculture. And such employ- 
 ment cannot present any insuperable difficulties. We 
 have excellent electrical engineers, excellent engineering 
 works ready to supply what is wanted, quite apart from 
 the great German firms, more experienced thus far in this 
 particular branch of work — ^like Siemens-Schuckert and 
 the AUgemeine ElektrizitatsgesseUschaft — which are only 
 too willing to supply our market and whose illustrated 
 handbooks afford a mass of useful information upon the 
 subject. It is time, at any rate, that the matter were 
 studied. And one may hope that our backwardness wiU 
 not long continue. 
 
3°3 
 
 XIV.— CO-OPERATION IN THE TENURE 
 OF LAND. 
 
 Collective cultivation of land — which is a different 
 thing altogether from collective occupation — has become 
 pretty well a practice of the past. It will not bear the 
 strain of severe modern day conditions. De Men commun 
 on ne fait pas monceau. But it has gone to rest only to 
 see collectivism either in the tenure or else in the acquisition 
 of land rise up far more promisingly in its place. 
 
 We are, in this country, at the present moment con- 
 cerned practically only with the first of these two forms 
 of occupation. And to that form accordingly must in the 
 main present observations be restricted — although an 
 occasional passing glance will necessarily have to be cast 
 at the other. Its rising into prominence may be taken to 
 be now only a question of time. Mrs. Rowland ^'\'ilkins 
 herself, though an out and out champion of tenant hold- 
 ings, admits in her evidence given before the Small Holdings 
 Committee, that " the best kind of man, the strongest and 
 most vigorous kind of man, would aim at a freehold" 
 (7954). ^^^ " You will always get a class of men who 
 think the freehold is the best thing to aim at " (7953). 
 So far as our present consideration extends, the principles 
 which govern the one form of occupation may be held 
 to govern also the other. 
 
 For the present moment, however, the port towards 
 which alone we in this country are dehberately steering 
 is the creation of a host of small tenant holdings, by means 
 of which we hope to make our agricultural lana once more 
 "' the land of the people," and to provide rural homes for 
 
304 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 our overflowing population. And those who take part: 
 in the organisation of such movement very accountably 
 suffer themselves to be led in the main, for practical pur- 
 poses, by the precepts of our last Act, of 1908. Our 
 efforts are bent upon taking advantage of its technical 
 provisions and the powers which it confers. That one 
 Act cannot, however, possibly determine national land 
 policy for all time. It marks a material advance on the 
 road to the democratisation of Land and of Agriculture- 
 on which we find ourselves walking, and for the moment 
 it appears to meet the requirements felt by people in- 
 terested. However, it can as little bound the movement 
 as did that well-meant but abortive Act of Mr. Chaphn's- 
 of 1892. 
 
 An inscription on the walls of Neu Breisach says : 
 Limes cram Gallis, nunc pons et janna fio. 
 A similar evolution may be predicted for our policy of land 
 settlement. The very flaws now detected in its machinery, 
 when put into practice — and they are very apparent — 
 proclaim that there must be more ground passed over, 
 that the "bound" must become, as in the above Une, a 
 " bridge and gateway " for further advance. 
 
 That circumstance in itself will make it desirable 
 that a broader view of the question should be here taken than 
 the very practical, but still narrow, one of what can be- 
 accomplished under the Act as it stands. Acts of Parha- 
 ment are, after all, only the outward garb given to popular 
 demands which claim acceptance, not because they are per- 
 mitted hy an Act or otherwise, but because they are good 
 and useful in themselves and therefore entitled to call for 
 new legislation. 
 
 Among the flaws so detected, as has been indicated, 
 the most apparent are to be found in the machinery, the 
 handling of which is committed to the County Councils^ 
 which have not, generally speaking — there are exceptions- 
 
OCCUPATION OF LAND. 305 
 
 — thus far shown themselves markedly sympathetic to 
 the rtew movement, being themselves supervised by a 
 public Department in London, whose officers are guided 
 by red tape regulations. Six additional Small Holdings 
 Commissioners have recently been appointed to do the 
 necessary prodding. The dissatisfaction caused by earlier 
 inaction called imperatively for some remedy. Never- 
 theless, in principle the machinery with its inherent 
 defects remains still the same. The County Council 
 continues to be the administering authority. And it is 
 destined to continue so to the end of the chapter. We do 
 not get rid of it after a completed transaction. The land 
 being granted on lease, or by agreement, is doomed to 
 remain tenant land under the County Council, of the 
 future composition of which no trustworthy forecast can 
 be formed. There can be no fixity of tenure. The 
 tenancy comes to an end. In the case of Mere, in Wilt- 
 shire — which is quoted by the Board of Agriculture itself 
 as a sort of model instance — the collective lease runs for 
 twenty-one years, with an option to extend it to thirty. 
 In other cases the lease expires at the end of fourteen 
 years. That is not fixity of tenure. Our men are indeed 
 likely, as tenants, to wish to retain their power of free 
 movement. But very few of them are likely to desire 
 to be compelled at a given time to move elsewhere, or else 
 to submit to new terms, under which their own outlay 
 and improvements may conceivably be charged against 
 them. It is idle to object that the County Council of 
 thirty years hence wiU be glad to renew on the old terms. 
 It may be so, and it may not. And pubhc opinion on the 
 matter may change. A man who puts thirty years' labour 
 into a parcel of land is entitled to ask for better security 
 than inere conjecture. And then there is the question 
 of buildings. We have been fortunate thus far in having 
 -.to deal in the main with areas only which required no new 
 
3o6 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 buildings, because all the new tenants were denizens 
 already of the particular parish and had homes oi their 
 own, or else the existing buildings could be so appropriated 
 as — ^readily or at a pinch — to suffice for their new purposes. 
 But that is not likely to happen in every case. And 
 when we talk of " RepeopUng the Land," and " Bringing 
 People back to the Land," it is to be presumed that we 
 are thinking also of setting up new homesteads, as well 
 as of simply giving more to him that hath already. And 
 that win require new buildings. We possess a consider- 
 able variety of arrangements for simply " housing " 
 purposes. But none of them yet apply to " settling." 
 To speak of one of them, the main reason accounting for 
 the signal success of Mr. Vivian's " Tenant Co-operators " 
 housing scheme is that it gets rid of landlordship, that in 
 a reasonable, democratic way it creates ownership vested^ 
 not in a County Council, but collectively in the society of 
 tenants themselves, who thus become in a sense their own 
 landlords, and thereby obtain fixity of tenure and an 
 assurance of fair rents. Under a determinable lease the 
 question of buildings is a difficult one to deal with. Four- 
 teen or thirty years' occupation cannot fairly repay the 
 cost of erection by the tenant himself. And the buildings 
 set up by the landlord may suit the present tenant, but 
 not at all his successor. 
 
 The difficulty of obtaining land in tenure in small 
 plots at reasonable rents has long made itself felt in all 
 countries in which tenancy, as contrasted \vith ownership, 
 prevails, therefore also in our own. But although, even 
 among ourselves, the burden of such difficulty has been 
 great, it has not been brought home in quite the same 
 galling form, actually provoking to rebellion, in which it 
 has been made to press upon the shoulders, say, of the 
 poor cultivators in Italy and Roumania, the case of which 
 two countries will help to explain the nature of the problem 
 
OCCUPATION OF LAND. 30;- 
 
 set before us, as well as to give a clue to its solution. 
 Ireland has had its middlemen, making money out of 
 " gombeening " land — hiring it at moderate rents and 
 subletting it at usurious rates. Modern legislation has- 
 checked that. Our own small men have rather been 
 denied the use of land altogether, or else been made to pay 
 for it through the nose, but still to the genuine landlord, 
 whose severity is kept somewhat in check, either by 
 his own humane disposition, or else by public opinion. 
 In Italy and Roumania things have been very much 
 worse. Poor people in those countries had no choice 
 but to live on and by the land ; there was no alternative 
 for them. But access to land at reasonable rents they 
 were wholly debarred. There were middlemen between, 
 to whom humane considerations were foreign and who 
 designedly drove the severest of bargains that proved 
 practicable. 
 
 The reason why landlords, whether in Ireland or in 
 Italy or Roumania, so readily employ middlemen to let 
 their land for them, is easily explained. Landlords — 
 who in the foreign countries named are indeed grasping 
 enough — would not needlessly forego the higher rent 
 which a smedl holder legitimately can afford to pay, much 
 less the extortionate rent that he may be made to pay by 
 a grinding middleman, if there were not some counter- 
 balancing advantages to be got by the seeming sacrifice. 
 Such advantages consist in the avoidance of considerable 
 trouble occasioned by having a shoal of men to deal with 
 instead of only one, and also of much petty inquiry, 
 oversight, cautionings, adaptations of terras, and more- 
 over in the obtaining of better security. When it comes 
 to a dispute, the small holder makes a very poor " defen- 
 dant " ; when it comes to foreclosing, a distressingly 
 disappointing distrainee. To press him. may mean to 
 havje to employ measures from which a cultivated man's 
 
3o8 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 instincts recoil. Our landlord may be perfectly ready to 
 profit by them, so far as they are employed by another— just 
 as the gourmet, who would not for the life of him commit 
 so unsportsmanlike an act as shooting a lark or the cruelty 
 of crimping a live cod, is ready enough to eat of both tooth- 
 some delicacies, when others have committed the " bar- 
 barity " for him. The middleman has some security to 
 ■offer, one form of which consists in the consciousness that 
 the success of his business depends upon his punctual pay- 
 ment of the rents, which involves his regularly obtaining 
 them from his sub- tenants. He can watch, worry and prose- 
 cute without losing caste. So it is in Italy, and that accounts 
 for the excessive rents exacted from its contadtni. In Rou- 
 mania the hardship has a further sting in it in the fact that a 
 -considerable proportion of the oppressive middlemen, 
 grinding the tenants, are men of a foreign race, and because, 
 in addition, the extortioner takes out his rent to a large 
 extent in laborious corvee, meted out with no stinting 
 hand. Under such conditions it is not surprising that 
 the oppressed tenants should have combined to shake off 
 the yoke. The State helping, with powers and with 
 money — ^provided that the societies forming to rent land 
 independently can show sufficient capital of their own to 
 justify the enterprise — the movement has progressed 
 rapidly and, although it was only begun in 1903, by the 
 €nd of 1909 it had come to embrace 275 societies, with 
 46,071 members, disposing of about £51,000 of share 
 capital, and renting 276,302 acres of land, at an annual 
 collective rent of £222,980. It had gone on extending at 
 a progressive ratio. The last year's addition to the roll 
 amounted to 103 new societies with 22,835 members and 
 £17,000 share capital. The Italian contadino's servitude 
 was not quite as oppressive. But it was grinding enough. 
 He, too, accordingly sought refuge in collective renting, by 
 means of societies, the origin of which is due in the main 
 
OCCUPATION OF LAND. 309 
 
 to the active propaganda of the braccianti of the Romagna, 
 who consider themselves socialists but make capital co- 
 operators, and who have by their agitation infused new heart 
 and hope into the rural population of northern Italy. 
 The movement is of quite modern growth. The statistics 
 published do not go down as far as one might wish. But 
 in 1908 there were known to be about 150 such societies 
 in existence, cultivating among them about 200,000 acres 
 of land, and making hfe worth hving to its own emanci- 
 pated cultivators — all the more that they were careful to 
 practise co-operation in their husbandry as well as in their 
 collective renting. According to a statement quite 
 recently made by the Deputy Professor Samoggia, who 
 has taken the lead in the movement, there are at the 
 present time about two hundred such associations. 
 
 These poor people combined to throw off an oppressive 
 yoke. Our small cultivators and would-be cultivators are 
 not in anything like so bad a case. Societies like the obstei 
 and affiUanze might prove exceedingly useful and con- 
 venient among ourselves — and very profitable to tenants 
 — for obtaining land from wilHng landlords, as a matter 
 of private arrangement. And such utility is likely to 
 become still further accentuated when we come to pro- 
 moting land settlement by transfer of ownership, as we 
 are likely to do before very long. To a moderate extent 
 the principle embodied in this method has already been 
 apphed, apparently with success, by the Northern Allot- 
 ment Association. And the large movement of land 
 settlement now proceeding in Prussia, by the interposition 
 of the State, which is by itself responsible (there are other 
 agencies at work besides) for at least a million of acres 
 transformed into flourishing communities of peasant hold- 
 ings, may be taken to be based upon the same principle. 
 A very brief sketch of the system there employed 
 may be thought not altogether out of place at this point. 
 
3IO CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 since occasional reference will have to be made to it. It 
 has answered brilliantly, and something similar appears 
 applicable to ourselves.* 
 
 Under existing rules the plan for the partition of an 
 estate among small holders has in Prussia to be submitted 
 by the landowner, whose business it is to find suitable 
 and wilhng purchasers, and to arrange with them amicably 
 in what manner and for what consideration he is to parcel 
 out his land among them. Provided that his proposal is 
 judged deserving of adoption, a special authority, nomin- 
 ated by the Crown for a determined district — which is 
 judicial rather than pohtical, and therefore independent of 
 Departments — takes over the whole transaction to its own 
 account, which means a very material saving of expense 
 and trouble to the vendor, and on the other hand the 
 certainty of becoming possessed of a holding provided 
 with all requirements — compact, accessible, in heart and 
 so on — to the purchaser. The work being completed, the 
 owner is, to the extent of three-fourths of the value ascer- 
 tained by special valuation, paid by the State in land- 
 bonds, which he can without difficulty dispose of in the 
 market. For the remaining fourth — which may be 
 actually reduced by the valuation exceeding the sale 
 price — the landlord is directed to look to the purchaser, 
 or else to the market taking up his " second mortgage." 
 The amount taken out in landbonds is paid off by sinking 
 fund, at a moderate rate, in about sixty years. And so 
 the transaction is completed. The State now sacrifices 
 about £25 on every holding, to equip it handsomely, 
 beyond what is really necessary. But until such generous 
 practice was resorted to, the entire transaction cost the 
 State absolutely nothing, but all the same secured to the 
 
 * On the point of financing the creation of small holdings- 
 as freeholds see the Author's article " Small Holdings and Land- 
 banks " in the "Economic Review" of April, 1912. 
 
 I 
 
OCCUPATION OF LAND. ,V i 
 
 vendor a better price than he could have obtained in the 
 market and, on the other hand, fully satisfied the pur- 
 chasers. Obviously, mutatis mutandis, the same principle 
 might be apphed to mere letting. 
 
 Our present business is, however, with the Act of 
 1908, which is practically certain to govern present trans- 
 actions in the creation of small holdings, and with the best 
 way of setting that Act in motion by means of co-opera- 
 tive action. It may be as well at once to correct a mis- 
 apprehension with regard to the Act named, which is 
 widely held. It appears to be thought that the Act 
 permits the creation of small holdings only by way of 
 tenancy. That is a mistake. The Act enforces tenancy 
 in the case of land taken over by a County Council in 
 virtue of the power conferred upon it under the Act. 
 Such land may only be let in order that a guarantee may 
 be procured for its employment in the way which alone 
 is held to justify its expropriation ; or else in order that, such 
 employment faihng, the County Council may be in a posi- 
 tion to hand back the land to its previous owner in some- 
 thing Hke its original condition. In cases in which the 
 owner is willing to give up his land, disposal of it may be 
 proceeded with at the contracting parties' unfettered 
 choice. In such cases the co-operative method of renting 
 or buying is sure to be of advantage both to the owner 
 and to the incoming settlers. For it secures to the former 
 one sole bo'dy to treat with, which ought to be in a position 
 to undertake responsibility for meeting engagements, and 
 which certainly will relieve him of the trouble of collecting 
 rents from individual holders, and of the trouble also of 
 supervision and watching that there is no abuse. And, 
 on the other hand, it assures to the settlers more favour- 
 able terms — such as are justifiable under the circumstances 
 — and the certainty of conditions under which he may 
 co-operate with his neighbours in the pursuit of his hus- 
 
312 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 bandry, which is rightly held essential to his success. 
 The vendor will obtain better security, because in a co- 
 operative society the totality of members makes itself 
 answerable to him in the place of any one of them. The 
 burden of supervision resting upon him will be hghtened, 
 because every member of the society, being himself 
 responsible, will be interested in preventing default by 
 any other. The facilities so provided by small occupiers 
 so estabUshed for practising further co-operation, after 
 the co-operative obtainment of holdings, are for the 
 present still frequently made light of ; certainly they are 
 not rated at their full value. But in course of time they 
 are likely to be regarded as really the most substantial 
 advantage of aU secured, and the reason why Co-operation 
 is resorted to in acquiring the land ought far rather to be 
 considered to be the provision assured for settlement in 
 groups, as contrasted with isolated settlement — without 
 which small holdings settlements must be considered to 
 afford no sufficient prospect of success — than in the mere 
 economy and convenience effected in the first obtainment 
 of land. It is decidedly encouraging and satisfactory to 
 read that in Mere, in Wiltshire, " members are beginning to 
 GO-operate " {scilicet for common purchase, common employ- 
 ment of machinery, and so on). But what one would like 
 to see is that members should so co-operate from the very 
 outset. That is the surest way of arriving at success. 
 And it should be provided for in the origineil rules, as a 
 goal to make for in any case. 
 
 After distinguishing, as we should, between small 
 occupiers buying their holdings or hiring them — ^whether 
 through a small holdings society or otherwise — ^it may be 
 well to mention an intermediate method, which offers not 
 a few advantages wherever there are sufficient funds to 
 prompt its adoption. As between buying and renting 
 altogether the question really is mainly one of funds. 
 
OCCUPATION OF LAND. 313 
 
 The intending small holder who possesses sufficient capital 
 to buy his holding will in most cases, though not in all, 
 fare better by doing so. He will thereby obtain absolute 
 fixity of tenure, such as County Councils are not in a 
 position to assure to him. In addition he will secure, be 
 it in returns, or be it in ultimate sale price, much benefit 
 which under tenancy must be lost to him, and a property 
 with which in his improvements and his management he 
 can fully identify himself — something of his " very own." 
 He will also be entirely free to make whatever dispositions 
 he may choose in his husbandry, without regard for 
 covenants or anyone else's wishes. However, it would be 
 a mistake, for the sake of such advantages, substantial as 
 they are, to sacrifice money which would be more remuner- 
 atively employed as working capital, such as nowadays 
 there must be in comparative plenty to ensure success. 
 Ample working capital which, coupled with intelhgence, 
 will command success, must in every case be provided for. 
 The intermediate way here referred to applies the 
 same principle to landholding which Mr. Vivian and his 
 friends have with such marked success applied to housing. 
 The suggestion of so applying it proceeds from Mr. W. L. 
 Charleton, the foimder of the Agricultural Organisation 
 Society, and a faithful pupil of Sir Horace Plunkett. It 
 consists in a society collectively buying an area, parts of 
 which it afterwards lets separately to members, who 
 by such process become landlords and tenants at the same 
 time — ^landlords collectively with their fellow members, 
 for aU profit goes to the society ; and tenants individually 
 as holding their holdings on lease to be determined, should 
 occasion arise, by their own choice alone. Such arrange- 
 ment assures to them all the benefits of full freedom to 
 move away, which the advocates of tenancy hold to be 
 so essential, at the same time that it gives them absolute 
 fixity of tenure, if they choose to claim it — under a land- 
 
314 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 lord who is bound to be fair-minded and to understand 
 their needs, because the landlord is themselves. This 
 arrangement also lays a sure foundation for that co-opera- 
 tion in the cultivation of small holdings which is now, as 
 has been said, recognised as so essential to their success. 
 And it may be taken to assure to those who join in the 
 •enterprise — ^provided that they act at all prudently — a. 
 progressive increase in the capital value of their property. 
 The consideration for all this is additional capital, 
 which should not be measured too sparingly. There must 
 be a substantial stake for every member in the collective 
 •enterprise. There is far too ready a disposition now to rely 
 upon loan capital — ^loan capital pleaded for without a 
 realisation of the essential condition of adequate security. 
 In his model rules Mr. Charleton makes no provision for a 
 minimum holding in shares. It would probably be wise 
 to adopt a rule corresponding to that of Mr. Vivian, which 
 makes the acquisition, in succession and by very easy instal- 
 ments, of five £io shares obligatory in his housing societies. 
 Small holders who are not in a position to provide the 
 necessary capital had better trust to the County Council 
 or such other landlord as they can find, and keep their 
 little funds for working capital. 
 
 To return to the question immediately before us — 
 the advantage to a County Council, of all bodies, as an 
 intermediate authority, called upon to set the Act of 
 1908 in motion, of having to deal with a co-operative society 
 of would-be tenants rather than with a number of single 
 applicants, must be manifest at first glance. Not only 
 will the Council — provided that ordinary dictates of 
 prudence are observed — ^have only one body to deal with 
 in the place of a number, and that, as has been shown, a 
 body offering much improved security, both for engage- 
 ments and for supervision ; but its whole labour of proceed- 
 ing with the acquisition and the laying out of land will be 
 
OCCUPATION OF LAND. 315 
 
 mplified. It will be able to deal with larger areas, 
 ases have of course occurred in which one man has, on 
 le strength of the Act, claimed, say, an area of twenty 
 ;res, when the Council might easily have obtained eighty. 
 
 satisfy the applicant, without consideration for the 
 roposed vendor, might have meant ruining the latter's 
 tate. Making allowance solely for the landlord must 
 ave the appUcant with a grievance, which is not likely 
 
 1 pass unnoticed in these days of newspaper publicity, 
 ich a thing could not happen where applicants combine 
 -as in reason they may be expected to do where there are 
 sufficient number — ^to apply and act ia common. There 
 is been much controversy as to how County Councils 
 ight to proceed, in order co do justice to the intentions 
 : the Act. Ought they to defer buying land till they 
 ive sufficient apphcations for it ? Or ought they to buy 
 
 advance at their own risk ? In the latter case applica- 
 yns may fail to come in, after the land has been pur- 
 lased ; or apphcants may decUne to take up their par- 
 :ular holdings. The whole matter would probably be 
 uch simpUfied if the authority called upon to deal with 
 were not a County Council, but a body created for the 
 lecial work, possessed of expert knowledge, acting, it 
 ay be, under the Board of Agriculture, but endowed with 
 me independence and responsible for itself. That is 
 tiat has succeeded so weU in Prussia. From such a body 
 nail Holdings Societies might also be found more ready 
 accept guidance and oversight, and its counsel and 
 sistance might even be welcomed as very useful. 
 
 Some few suggestions applying to the formation and 
 rection of Small Holdings Societies may be not out of 
 ace. 
 
 In an address published in the Journal of the Board 
 Agriculture, the present Assistant Secretary of the Board 
 Agriculture, Mr. Cheney, very rightly lays stress, as has 
 
3i6 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 likewise been done here, upon the necessity of starting 
 with sufficient capital. That point will still have to be 
 dealt with a little more in detail. There is no denying the 
 justice of Mr. Cheney's admonition. However, in com- 
 pany with the experienced leaders of the German settling 
 movement, who have passed through a long instructive 
 training, I hold another point, to which unfortunately 
 among ourselves too little regard is still paid, to be of 
 even more pressing importance, and that is the fitness of 
 the intending settlers for their particular work. Such j 
 fitness will justify the setting aside even of the otherwise ' 
 most wholesome limits which the Board of Agriculture 
 lays down in the matter of capital, and the substitution of a 
 more elastic rule. The Board of Agriculture insists, as 
 security, upon the provision of three years' rent ; or else 
 only six months', if paid in advance — provided that the 
 total of the uncalled share capital does not exceed a further 
 eighteen months' rent ; or, in the third place, it will accept 
 an approved guarantee added to the first six months' rent. 
 The lastnamed condition, the guarantee, merely shifts the 
 burden of risk of non-payment from the Council's shoulders 
 to those of the guarantor, and at the same time introduces 
 the rather objectionable element of dependence upon, 
 someone else which, wherever possible. Small Holdings 
 Societies ought to study to keep clear of. We cannot find 
 acceptable guarantees for all small holdings settlements 
 to be formed. Under the Prussian rule — ^which, as 
 observed, deals with instalment purchase, not with renting, 
 but without altering the principle — ^the incoming settler 
 is required to provide one-fourth of the purchase money 
 agreed upon. That is none too much. He may also be 
 called upon to prove the possession of sufficient working 
 capital. However, provided that the settlement scheme 
 is judged promising, and the man fit for his business, 
 the General Commission — ^that is the special authority ad- 
 
OCCUPATION OF LAND. 317 
 
 judicating in the matter — has been found to content itself 
 with considerably less. There are cases in which the 
 purchaser has been let off with only one-tenth paid down. 
 And there are also cases — ^mainly in the Polish provinces 
 — in which either co-operative banks, being given appro- 
 priate personal security, or else bodies like the Hanover 
 Old Age Pensions Fund, dealing with the matter as a. 
 matter of mortgage, have provided the entire last fourth 
 by credit. There is something similar in force in Belgium, 
 under the General Savings Bank's admirable housing 
 scheme. That is one of the advantages of having an 
 authority to deal with the matter of which the strings 
 are not pulled automatically in a red tape way from 
 headquarters, which is allowed discretion of its own, is 
 locally in close touch with the settlements, and trained 
 to its particular business. The confidence so bestowed 
 on settlers has been shown not to have been misplaced. 
 In fact, German settlement officers — who are really the 
 only persons affording a precedent, by reason of their long 
 practice — ^make a very great point of ascertaining the tech- 
 nical qualifications of settlers. In Italy the matter is in the 
 hands of the contadini and the hraccianti themselves, who 
 have grown up in agricultural work of the simple kind 
 that win answer for their purposes. So there is no fear 
 of " tinkers, tailors and candlestick makers " being recruited 
 for work to which they are quite unaccustomed. The 
 same thing holds good in Roumania. In France the 
 movement is perfectly new, and the facilities of cheap 
 money advanced for a comparati^-ely short period not 
 exceeding twenty-five years — granted only since March, 
 1910 — are effectively restricted to peasantry and country 
 labourers only. In Germany it has been found that 
 townsmen — ^such as we are fondly persuading ourselves 
 that we may find homes for and employ on their own 
 account in the country — ^will not do. They break down,. 
 
3i8 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 or else get into mischief — ^unless it be that they are country 
 folk simply comiag back to their old calling after an 
 episode of town life. On a small scale we have had the 
 same experience in this country. In the fortunately 
 defunct English Land Colonisation Society we were found 
 — some fifteen years ago — to have settled men as tenants 
 in Hertfordshire who knew nothing whatever about agri- 
 culture and accordingly fell into the most ludicrous mis- 
 takes — ^which our Honorary Secretary, now a Cabinet 
 Minister, begged us urgently not to reveal to the world, 
 " lest the thing be misunderstood." There was no room 
 for misunderstanding. The thing was as plain as a pike- 
 staff. In Prussia even country schoolmasters have been 
 found to fail, and are in consequence no longer accepted. 
 Farm servants, labourers, and peasants' sons are found to 
 make the best settlers. And since a long time back no 
 others are accepted. It is found desirable that they 
 should, if possible, belong to the district in which they 
 settle and should know it well. In Roumanian obstei that 
 condition is insisted upon. In Germany connection with the 
 locaHty is looked upon not purely as a matter of being 
 used to local ways, understanding accepted practices and 
 being familiar with local husbandry, but also of having 
 friends near with whom, if necessary, to exchange services, 
 and of being in consequence well known, so as to be 
 capable of being trusted. 
 
 Wherever we apply the provisions of the Act, through 
 the regulation intervention of the Board of Agriculture 
 and of County Councils, .we are, more especially in view 
 of our ingrained easy-going habits, scarcely likely to 
 engage in the same minute examination of applicants and 
 their circumstances. It is just at this point therefore 
 that Small Holdings Societies are likely to commend them- 
 selves as most effective substitutes, and more than that. 
 We shall have to realise that settling smaU holders on the 
 
OCCUPATION OF LAND. 319 
 
 land is not a mere mechanical operation : — Here is a 
 holding, there is a settler ; join them together, finance 
 the business, and the thing is done ! We shall have to 
 bring ourselves to look to the old Berrichon peasant rule : 
 Tant vaut I'homme, tant vaut la terre. A suitable man is 
 sure to make a successful small holder, even under financial 
 difficulties; an unsuitable man cannot make a success of 
 the imdertaking, even though his pockets be filled with 
 ^old. However, when we proceed by means of co-opera- 
 tive societies, the co-operative society may be trusted, in 
 its own interest, to make sure that its members are at any 
 rate prima facie suitable settlers ; because, if they were 
 not, the other members might have to pay for them. 
 And it will check and control them, take care that they 
 do not fall into arrears, because for every default it will, 
 as a whole, have to answer. 
 
 That naturally leads us on to the point already 
 touched upon of funds. The members of the society enter 
 into joint liability, which is to be responsible to the land- 
 lord for rent, and to any other creditor for whatever claim 
 he may rightfully possess. However, after all, since we 
 cannot contemplate any but strictly Hmited liability — 
 in Roumania the liability is advisedly made unUmited — 
 it will be found on calculation that that does not really 
 amount to very much. Our Small Holdings Societies as 
 a rule impose upon their members the obUgation of taking 
 up at least one share, for the most part fixed at £1, upon 
 which probably only 5s. will be paid up. That leaves 15s. 
 per member to be drawn upon. That does not supply 
 overmuch margin. And it is just in the earliest stages, 
 when none of that reserve fund is yet accumulated — 
 which common prudence will dictate to the Society to 
 gather up scrupulously out of sub-rents advisedly not too 
 generously cut down — ^that the want of common liabihty 
 -will most acutely assert itself. For it is in traversing the first 
 
320 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 rough ground that most failures are hkely to occur. Such 
 consideration seems to prompt the suggestion that rather 
 more ample provision for funds should be attempted. 
 For instance, Mr. Vivian's " Tenant Co-operators " might 
 serve as an example. At the very least the obligation to 
 take up shares ought to be proportioned, as it is in the 
 case of the Eastern Counties Farmers' Co-operative 
 Association (formed for co-operative purchase and sale), 
 to the size of the holding. The share capital once formed^ 
 the accumulation of reserve should be accepted as the 
 most pressing duty. That can be provided for only by 
 keeping rents for the first period up to not too much below 
 current market rate. Under ordinary circumstances there 
 ought to be plenty of margin. And there is some danger 
 in making things too easy from the first. Some settle- 
 ments abroad have done questionably in consequence. 
 
 Seeing how important a matter is the presence of 
 available funds, a most desirable adjunct to the Small 
 Holdings Society will be a Co-operative Credit Society, 
 if possible from the very start. Provided that care has 
 been taken, as has been here urged, that there is sufficient 
 mutual knowledge of one another among members, the 
 circumstances of the society are certainly suitable for this. 
 Without adequate mutual touch and knowledge, however, 
 it must be admitted that the matter presents difficulties. 
 In the Prussian anti-Polish settlements — which are a 
 different thing altogether from the settlements here 
 held up as possible models — the formation of credit 
 societies has proved difficult, because the small holders 
 in question were recruited from the most different 
 parts of the empire — some even from Switzerland — and 
 were therefore unknown to one another and wholly without 
 touch. You cannot under such circumstances expect 
 people to enter into unlimited liabihty for one another. 
 However, otherwise in a new settlement a co-operative 
 
OCCUPATION OF LAND. 321 
 
 bank is bound to prove of the utmost utility. There will, 
 as has been already observed, have to be co-operation 
 beyond that for mere settlement. To practise such, every 
 ■description of co-operative apparatus needed is likely to 
 have to be newly raised up. 'And in doing so a bank is 
 sure to prove of advantage. It may be turned to account 
 for facilitating not a little the arrangement — the benefits 
 -of which are in themselves so apparent that resort has 
 been had to it in the cases of several of our existing pioneer 
 small holdings associations — of a cash credit opened by 
 some Joint Stock Bank in the vicinity. The objection 
 sometimes put forward that mere tenancy opposes an 
 obstacle to the practice of co-operative credit, inasmuch 
 as there is no freehold to answer in the last resort as 
 security, should not be permitted to deter people. Co- 
 operative credit of the kind here referred to ought in any 
 case to be based upon personal security, not real. It 
 answers among the Italian tenantry, which is certainly 
 not remarkable for excessive wealth. And tenancy — 
 as I have elsewhere quoted the late TuUio Minelli, for a 
 long time the successful managing director of the Co- 
 operative Bank of Rovigo, which has almost exclusively 
 tenants for its credit customers — serves to keep the 
 credit dealt in purer than freehold, for the very reason 
 that it compels the givers of credit to look exclusively to 
 personal security, instead of permitting mortgage security, 
 -quite improper under the circumstances, to push its way 
 in as an alloy. As regards the taking of deposits, a small 
 •holders' society is quite unsuitable for that. It is the 
 bank which should be intrusted with such work. 
 
 It is not quite easy to lay down rules for proceeding 
 with the setting up of new buildings, where such are 
 required. This is a point which is Ukely to cause some 
 trouble, because the leases given are not thus far in them- 
 tselves long enough to recoup outlay by the society, which 
 
322 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 of course is not likely to be overburdened with cash. On 
 the other hand, for the landlord, who in this case may 
 conceivably be called upon to hand back the land expro- 
 priated to its former owner — ^the tax upon whose purse 
 in the way of redemption will in fairness have to be con- 
 sidered (that marks a considerable difference from the 
 case of the ordinary landlord) — building a number of small 
 homesteads on land which twenty or thirty years hence 
 may have to be either given up or else reapportioned in 
 quite a new way, and for different kinds of cultivation, 
 presents more serious difficulties than in the case of large 
 farms, the nature of whose employment is not Ukely to 
 change much. One particular attraction of the Prussian 
 system is that the incoming settler is allowed to set up 
 the buildings for himself, to suit his own taste. Towards 
 this he is given financial assistance, which is dealt with 
 as distinct from his payments for the holding as a whole. 
 Repayment of the principal is made to proceed at a more 
 rapid pace. (Our societies will do well, by the way, where- 
 ever really new farms are created, with their own home- 
 steads, to copy the Prussian method in taking care that 
 every such farm is suitably laid out, with independent 
 access, a decent road, a fairly compact shape, a proper 
 allowance of natural grass, and so on.) Any repairs 
 occurring, just the, same as fencing and the hke, the 
 Society will of necessity have to undertake on its collective 
 account, recovering from its members according to their 
 several Habihty — ^by preference by one sole payment for 
 all charges : rent, rates and all. Wherever buildings have 
 to be set up — and one may hope that the occasion will soon 
 arise, or the Act will miss half its object — arrangements 
 will have to be made appropriate to each case. But, as 
 observed, 'with slender funds on one side and not excessive 
 wiUingness on the other, that may prove not quite an 
 easy matter. 
 
OCCUPATION OF LAND. 323. 
 
 Since a Credit Society has been suggested as an 
 organisation to be set up by the side of the renting society, 
 it may not be amiss to urge once more due provision ta 
 be made, right at the outset, for co-operative buying, of 
 farm and domestic requisites aHke, for co-operative sale 
 of produce, and for combination for work such as has 
 been spoken of in connection with the associations syndi- 
 cates of France. There is also Hkely to be room for com- 
 mon purchase of implements and machinery intended for 
 common use — such as is already exemplified by the society 
 at Kingsthorpe, owning a mowing machine, which is let 
 out to members. Such common use of machinery — and 
 not a few implements not ordinarily of daily use on the 
 same farm — has been found of considerable utility in many 
 foreign agricultural co-operative organisations. And there 
 will be no harm in admitting non-members to the use of these 
 things — at a shghtly higher charge — where the number 
 of members is not sufficient to give them full employment. 
 By the side of the purely material wants so supphed, 
 educational wants — which make for greater material 
 success — should not be neglected. Although the rudi- 
 ments of Co-operation are easy and readily intelligible, 
 there is a good deal in Co-operation that requires to be 
 taught, if it is to bring forth full fruit. Should such 
 educational endeavours give rise, as in the Co-operative 
 Union, to the cultivation of the social side of hfe, there 
 will be no harm done ; only one would not like to see 
 " whist drives " once more allowed to rank as " education." 
 
 There is no occasion to say much about the size of 
 the society to be formed. Other things being equal, as 
 a matter of course, the larger the society, the smaller will 
 be the risk of individual failures, the more considerable 
 is also likely to be the reduction of rent to the individual 
 holder, and the greater will be the strength of the society. 
 The broader the basis, the more stable is the fabric sure 
 
324 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 to be. However, the point will have to depend entirely 
 upon the circumstances of each case. An experiment, 
 which has not yet proceeded very far, has been entered 
 upon of grouping societies on various sites in one imion, 
 ■or rather of starting societies as offshoots from one central 
 organisation. That is likely to prove useful as a matter 
 of comparing notes and undertaking any work of research 
 or education — also, it may be, for rather considerable 
 -collective purchases or sales. On the other hand, it is 
 a sound principle in Co-operation that responsibility should 
 not be interlaced. Every settlement wiU have to stand 
 financially upon its own bottom, have its own responsible 
 organ of management, and answer for its own liabilities 
 only. 
 
 There are a variety of tjrpes of societies possible. 
 We have got a few at present — a society of small dairy 
 farmers at Mere ; a society of market gardeners at Biggles- 
 wade ; and there are societies for general farming. Under 
 ordinary circumstances a society laying itself out for some 
 special culture would appear to have the best prospect 
 ■of success. For the small man cannot well compete with 
 the larger and with the foreigner in the production of 
 ordinary farm produce. He requires to be engaged upon 
 some work in which the advantages secured by the re- 
 stricted size of his holding, favouring more watchful and 
 intelligent labour, more minute oversight and larger 
 expenditure in proportion upon fertihsers and feeding 
 stuffs, prudent adaptation of cultivation to every rod of 
 possibly varying soil, and the Uke, are likely to tell. They 
 may be made to tell, on not too small holdings, in cow- 
 keeping and dairying ; they are bound to tell in market 
 :gardening and the raising, more particularly of small 
 fruit ; and, according to the suggestions of a German critic 
 of our agriculture recently quoted prominently by two of 
 our leading political newspapers, we shall have to seek 
 
OCCUPATION OF LAND. 325 
 
 nore " industrial " crops suitable to our soil and climate, 
 a great extent the secret of the strength, more par- 
 larly of German, but also of French, small husbandry 
 in the cultivation of such special crops, which make 
 rger demand upon the purse, muscles and headpiece 
 tie cultivator, but repay him more than in proportion. 
 ;ther tobacco will prove one such wealth-bringing crop, 
 t depend upon the taste of our smokers and the rulings 
 ur Treasury. With respect to sugar beet, the amount 
 lenial labour required, the unpleasantness of the work 
 e bestowed in the factory, and the striking dispropor- 
 
 between the yield per acre, severally of sugar beet 
 
 of mangels, grown for feeding purposes, appear to 
 tate against its rapid extension. And in sugar making 
 proportion of shares that can be taken by our small 
 vators threatens to be only small, because there will 
 ; to be a very much broader foundation of cultivation 
 1 these men can supply — and the capital raised 
 such enterprises will have to be large. However, 
 market gardening and fruit growing the prospect 
 IS to be of the most promising. And for their produce 
 lave the best of markets at our very door. We still 
 >rt enormous quantities of such goods from abroad — 
 
 either raw or in pulp. Half the black currants 
 uced in their rich favourite home of Burgundy come 
 ; in one of those two shapes. We might just as well 
 
 them on British soil. But at this point, once more, 
 not only the growing that is wanted. Concurrently 
 
 the laying out of fields for such produce, our co- 
 itive small holders will have to provide co-operatively 
 lethods of marketing them. That is really the most 
 ing point. 
 
 \s regards the size of individual holdings, likewise, 
 mpossible to lay down one uniform rule. Our settle- 
 s are hkely to continue, as they have begun, very 
 
 \v 
 
326 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 much smaller than those devoted to the same object in 
 Prussia, where entire estates, of a thousand, two thousand, 
 or five thousand acres are purchased for the purpose, upon 
 which new self-governing communities are made to spring 
 up. We have not yet got beyond three, or at most four 
 or five hundred acres. Thus far sub-division appears to 
 have occasioned no serious difficulty. To take the two 
 most frequently quoted instances — at Mere, where every 
 applicant had his own needs, the division was effected 
 amicably — as it is in the much larger settlements of free- 
 holders in Prussia, for which the plan of distribution is 
 prepared before the scheme is reported to the authority. 
 That is also the way in which the co-operative Raiffeisen 
 societies in Germany proceed on their own account, when- 
 ever some property comes to be offered for sale in a parish 
 in which there is a demand for portions of it. The pro- 
 perty is pegged out in plots, according to the preferences 
 of intending bidders, and offered at a mock auction, the 
 result of which binds the bidders, but not the society. 
 Should the sums offered prove sufficient to pay for the 
 estate, the property is at once bought by the society and 
 divided as was planned. An arrangement of this kind 
 is the best that could be made, giving greatest promise 
 of enduring contentment. In Biggleswade, on the other 
 hand, where, for market gardening purposes, and owing 
 to the pecuhar He of the land, individual preferences do 
 not appear to have existed, and the same plot (of five 
 acres) would do indifferently for any one, selection was 
 decided by lot. That presupposes equal, or fairly equal, 
 lots. However, such condition is not by any means 
 indispensable. Settlers want to please themselves and 
 take large or small holdings according to their require- 
 ments. In Kingsthorpe, in Northamptonshire, where a 
 farm of 335 acres has been laid out in small holdings, by 
 the Town Council — not the County Council — the size of 
 
OCCUPATION OF LAND. 327 
 
 ngs varies between 2 acres and 55J acres. The more 
 idual settlers please themselves, the better is the 
 ;y likely to answer. Thus far, although holdings 
 g themselves vary not a little in size, the average area 
 emained small. In Mere, the largest property yet 
 red, measuring 432 acres, there are twenty-eight 
 ts, all of them previously residents in the locaHty. 
 iggleswade, the newly settled area, covering 276 
 
 there are thirty-nine tenants. In Wayland, 285 
 
 (let for fourteen years only), eight tenants. In 
 ;thorpe, 335 acres, sixteen small holders and seventy 
 lent holders. All this means, as the Act in the main 
 led, settlement on a small scale. 
 The rents wiU require careful regulating. In Mere— 
 ; the value of the soil varies not a little, owing to 
 ;y and situation, every field was valued separately 
 
 skilled valuer. As a consequence rents vary in 
 nt as between 22s. and 44s. an acre. It does not 
 ' that such precedent will necessarily have to be 
 'ed in every case. The local people intending to 
 win in many cases be quite equal to determining the 
 r value and rent among themselves. But the aUoca- 
 )f rent should in any case be carried out with due 
 1 to real value ; and it would not be fair at a sub- 
 it renewal of the collective lease to upset such 
 nent, more particularly if that were to be on the 
 d of the individual tenant's own improvements in 
 ' or labour. 
 
 ; will be agreed that in conducting settlement vmder 
 ;t of 1908 there is plenty for co-operative associations 
 
 and by no other means could that which has to be 
 be accomplished more effectually than by such 
 es. Undoubtedly the Act limits their power and 
 Dpportunities. And official practice, which is given 
 ning in grooves, limits them stiU more. One would 
 
328 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 have wished for more elasticity, greater boldness, larger 
 propelling power. The idea of the intending holder apply- 
 ing, the County Council, as being the rating and governing 
 authority, awarding, and the Board of Agriculture super- 
 vising, seems in itself admirable. However, we know 
 that things do not invariably work out as it is imagined 
 that they will. Wheels get clogged, springs get worn, 
 and the machine is in consequence found to move slowly 
 or irregularly. However, what was passed in 1908 does 
 not bar out further improvement. And, if there is any- 
 thing calculated to infuse greater energy and more popular 
 initiative into the apparatus thus devised, it is small 
 holdings societies, in which settlers best learn their own 
 needs and create force to assert their claims. Wherever 
 there is a desire manifested to acquire land, such societies 
 should accordingly be formed. They wiU of themselves 
 be likely to produce propelling power. But it wiU have 
 to be borne in mind that the most substantial and most 
 abiding benefit that they can secure for their members is 
 not the actual parcelling out of the land, but the admirable 
 opportunity so created for further co-operation in turning 
 that land to account. 
 
329 
 
 XV.— EDUCATION. 
 
 t was with Education — with the creation of the 
 h Schools," long since grown famous, to be soon 
 
 followed by Agricultural Training Institutions — 
 the " Fathers " of Danish Agricultural Co-operation, 
 ip Grundtvig, Jestrup, Novregard, and their com- 
 ns, began their co-operative propaganda. It was 
 ducation also that the " Fathers " of British Co- 
 tion, Vansittart Neale, Hughes, Holyoake, &c., 
 ;d to promote their cause. And every Co-operative 
 1 worth its salt has written " Education " in large 
 s upon its banner and laboured to diffuse and perfect 
 ation. In truth, the very essence of Co-operation is 
 ation. It constitutes its most precious element, 
 t was a perfect revelation to our insular co-operators 
 
 in 1904, on the occasion of our International Co- 
 tive Congress held at Budapest, I placed before them 
 r Congress Volume a conspectus of the abundant and 
 i educational work carried on by Co-operative Unions 
 inly Agricultural — abroad. Our own co-operators 
 ise cultivate Education, and endow it largely — with 
 
 than £90,000 a year. And although much of that 
 ;oes in entertainments — which are charitably supposed 
 
 "educational" — no one can accuse them of failing 
 jpreciate highly the great value of Education, or 
 ig honestly at its extension. Indeed, sound Co-opera- 
 without Education placed well in the forefront, is 
 nkable. It would cease to be Co-operation. Of 
 ation Co-operation was begotten, and to Education 
 ist tend. \\'e observe this effect already to a rather 
 
330 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 marked degree in India, where Co-operation is still in its 
 first youth. Young as it is, it has taught people to long 
 for Education, and for Education they clamour with so 
 much earnestness that, for want of other means, in the 
 United Provinces a number of societies make their secre- 
 taries give the growing generation instruction during two 
 hours a day. 
 
 It seems to stand to reason that in rural districts, 
 above all things. Co-operation should be made educative, 
 because in such districts touch among human beings is looser 
 than in towns, and there are fewer other helps to intellectual 
 improvement. Population is more sparse and the things 
 which tend to stimulate the thirst for knowledge are more 
 sparingly distributed. 
 
 It is perfectly true that our public Departments — 
 of Agriculture and of Education — now appear fully ahve 
 to the importance of Education, and actively engaged in 
 promoting its diffusion. And it may well be asked : 
 Under such circumstances, what room is there for co- 
 operative action on the top of what is already being done 
 by two such powerful agencies, supported, as they are, 
 by the County Councils acting voluntarily in their own 
 particular spheres ? The answer is that there are different 
 ways of instiUing information, and different avenues to 
 the conception of knowledge. By all means let authorities 
 multiply farm schools, winter lectures, agricultural colleges 
 adapted to various grades ! Such institutions instruct 
 in one way — only, unfortunately, for our case, there is 
 very little that they teach thus far that applies distinctively 
 to Co-operation. People have advanced beyond our point 
 abroad. They already teach Co-operation in schools, in 
 the army — for soldiers, who in due course will return to 
 their fields — at colleges. In Germany there are no fewer 
 than nine universities in which "Co-operation" is made 
 a specific subject of instruction. And at the University of 
 
EDUCATION. 331 
 
 Halle there is now a special "Seminary" — a university 
 within the university — for Co-operation, at which some of 
 the most distinguished co-operators of the country act as 
 teachers to a growing number of students. However, 
 everybody cannot go to Halle University ; and if our 
 elementary schools were to take to teaching Co-operation 
 — ^which in all conscience they might — such teaching would 
 go only a limited way. The Co-operative Society has 
 other means of instruction open to it. It can enlist interest, 
 teach by contact, by the eye, by the force of opinion 
 among neighbours. People go to school or college arid 
 come away ; and there the thread is broken. They remain 
 in their society, and its schoohng goes on through life. 
 
 Coming to our own country, let us put it in this way. 
 Last year the National Poultry Organisation Society and 
 the Agricultural Organisation Society, now happily united, 
 ran in conjunction, as an altogether novel experiment, 
 an " Egg Demonstration Train " to South Wales, which 
 train served as a traveUing cathedra for many stations, 
 to which co-operative societies had been invited, and on 
 which Mr. E. Brown, with all requisite appliances and 
 produce at hand, taught his hearers a most useful lesson 
 on the production of eggs. We have every reason to 
 beheve that this experiment has done good. But would 
 anything Hke the same effect have been produced if the 
 body organising the expedition had been a pubUc Depart- 
 ment ? What was required for the purpose was a body 
 of pupils wilhng to be taught, feeling that they were more 
 than pupils, hnked to the organising institution by a 
 warm interest, such as membership naturally generates, a 
 body of pupils who would go home and talk the matter 
 over among themselves, knowing where they might with- 
 out hesitation apply for further teaching, compare notes 
 and encourage one another in carrying out what they 
 had been taught. 
 
332 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Here is another illustration. A gentleman authorised 
 to speak for the Board of Agriculture has recently (in- 
 dividually) decried the employment of experimental plots 
 — for which thirty years ago, with the assent of the late 
 Professor Voelcker, I pleaded more than once at meetings 
 of the Royal Agricultural Society. It is quite true that 
 we have advanced since then ; and also that our official 
 friend spoke specifically of experimental plots to be" run " 
 by County Councils. That is the point. Plots so provided 
 might prove useful or not. Experimental plots maintained 
 by societies might be counted upon with certainty to do 
 good, just because the institution undertaking the work 
 would be a society, that is, a body of men bound together 
 by a common interest, mutual touch and a spontaneous 
 desire to learn, having a voice in the regulation, and 
 carrying interest home with them. We found that even 
 in the comparatively brief life of our " Sussex Association 
 for the Improvement of Agriculture " — visits to the experi- 
 mental plots of which revealed on the one hand almost 
 incredible want of familiarity with quite elementary 
 scientific facts among leading farmers and land agents, 
 showing how urgently instruction was needed, but on 
 the other hand also imparted such instruction. Much of 
 this was under the circumstances assimilated. Mr. 
 Jesse CoUings some twenty years ago lighted upon what, 
 according to his own account, appears to have presented 
 itself to him as an oasis in agricultural teaching, in the 
 little kingdom of Wiirttemberg, which struck him as so 
 remarkable that he thought that he must at once bring 
 it under notice by publishing an account of it in a much 
 read Review. Had Mr. CoUings extended his inquiry, he 
 would have found that practically the same system of 
 instruction prevails all over Germany, even surpassing 
 here and there in one point or another what he had wit- 
 nessed in Wiirttemberg. However, it is just in Germany, 
 
EDUCATION. 333 
 
 certainly not undereducated, that, by the side of such 
 very effective teaching provided by authorities, education 
 by co-operative bodies, on their own account, and based 
 upon the distinctive advantages which as co-operative 
 bodies they possess, is the most highly developed. 
 
 There is another illustration which may help to bring 
 home the point here pleaded for. Just forty years ago 
 I prepared — without any mention of my name ; it was 
 a pure labour of love to assist a pioneer agricultural 
 co-operative association — some coloured tables for the 
 said society's journal, setting forth in what was then for 
 this country, quite a novel method, in red, blue and yellow 
 lines the rudimentary chemistry of farm crops, fodder and 
 manures. The tables proved a distinct success, more 
 particularly one of them which, showing the flesh-forming, 
 fat-forming, and total nutritive constituents of feeding 
 stuffs, indicated also on the other side by broad green lines, 
 in shillings — according, in the main, to Professor Sibson's 
 calculations — the manurial value of the residue left, after 
 passing through the animal. Mr. DisraeH's bringing in 
 his Agricultural Holdings Bill in 1875 stimulated a great 
 demand for this particular table among Members of the 
 House of Commons. Here was a thing that could advan- 
 tageously be issued only by an association, if it was to find 
 its way among genuine farming folk — for whom of course 
 it was intended — excite their interest and bring home its 
 instruction ! Of course the information there given is 
 by this time out of date. New discoveries have been made 
 and money values have altered. With some trouble I 
 revised and added to that information a year or two ago, 
 studying simplicity, so as to bring home in any one table 
 only one particular fact, and rather multiplying tables 
 than complicating information. My hope was that the 
 Agricultural Organisation Society would gladly accept 
 this offering and issue the tables. There were people who 
 
334 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 ihought that they would prove useful. However, my 
 colleagues — evidently failing to appreciate the value of 
 Chemistry as a handmaid to Agriculture — declined even 
 to look at the drawings or to entertain the idea for a 
 moment. Ah, it is easy to make light of Chemistry ! 
 But we cannot do without it. And just because it is so 
 difficult for simple minds to master, does it want to be 
 taught, in a rudimentary form, in such popular shape as 
 coloured diagrams, teaching through the eye, supply. In 
 Sussex, in the eighties, on our visits to our experimental 
 plots, I found farmers of great repute, recognised as local 
 chiefs of their calling, confessing themselves absolutely 
 ignorant of the several functions of nitrogen, potash and 
 phosphates as fertilising agents. They were in the habit, 
 as they admitted, of buying confidingly whatever their 
 dealers might recommend. One important point in 
 agricultural business, however, is to apply the right 
 fertilisers and the right feeding stuffs for the purposes 
 wanted, and to apply them in the cheapest and most 
 effective form. In a previous chapter I have shown that 
 Control Societies in Sweden have taught farmers to save 
 money, while improving results, by substituting one kind 
 of feeding stuff for another, and so reducing the expendi- 
 ture, calculated in Swedish feeding " units," from 155 to 
 135 lbs. There are many similar economies possible, in 
 manuring as well as in feeding ; and it is distinctly for 
 Co-operation to teach how this is to be brought about. 
 And it is a gross mistake to brush this consideration airily 
 aside as of no consequence, simply because oneself fails to 
 discover its importance. 
 
 If it be asked on what classes of subjects co-operative 
 organisations — it will for the most part have to be 
 Unions or local Sections ; for a tolerably broad basis is 
 required — should study to impart instruction , there is one 
 class palpably indicated by the very nature of the business 
 
EDUCATION. 335 
 
 to be transacted, and that is Co-operation itself and the way 
 of practising it, which includes such practical subjects as 
 society management, society account keeping, and society 
 inspection or supervision. 
 
 People want to be instructed in the work that they 
 will be called upon to perform. Such work begins in the 
 greatest simplicity, on a scale for which native motherwit 
 is fully sufficient. But people will be fooUsh indeed if 
 they are content dehberately to keep it down at that 
 point ; for its benefits cannot become fully apparent until 
 it is expanded to a larger scale. The Toad Lane weavers 
 required no commercial training. To-day, when we have 
 a great co-operative movement, we have also methodical 
 instruction, arranged for and conducted by the Co-opera- 
 tive Union, for store managers, window dressers, clerks, 
 book-keepers, buyers and auditors. And such instruction 
 is found of benefit in small stores as well as in large. 
 Precisely the same thing is, in its own way, required in 
 Agricultural Co-operation ; and other nations, more 
 advanced in this respect than ourselves, have systemati- 
 cally provided for it. The German Imperial Union, with 
 its twenty thousand or so societies, has made elaborate 
 arrangements for teaching in this particular matter, which 
 arrangements answer well. You want to supply superior 
 goods ; therefore your buyers and managers must be made 
 to know what constitutes superiority. You want to 
 provide them cheap ; therefore your officers ought to be 
 made to know what are the current quotations in the 
 various markets, which are the best and most trustworthy 
 sources of supply, what is likely to rise and what to fall, 
 and what causes fluctuations. One of these elementary 
 matters is particularly important — and important also even 
 in the earher stages — for us, who cannot in other things 
 yet, with our mere handful of societies, attempt to rival 
 the great foreign Unions. That matter is account keeping. 
 
336 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 auditing and inspection — the lastnamed of which, although 
 experienced co-operators abroad set the greatest possible 
 store by it, we for the present, in our ignorance, are still 
 pleased to ignore altogether. 
 
 As for account keeping, our farmers are notoriously 
 bad hands at that ; and small folk are not hkely to do 
 much better. But even in Germany, among co-operators 
 of long standing, the very account keeping and drawing 
 up of balance sheets occasion difficulty ; and for this 
 reason there is in the German Imperial Union a special 
 department, which undertakes to deal with accounts for 
 societies. The work of this department is highly appre- 
 ciated and does a great deal to keep Agricultural Co-opera- 
 tion on a sound basis. It is not to be confounded with 
 auditing, which is entrusted to an entirely distinct depart- 
 ment, because it aims solely at the production of regulation 
 balance sheets and current entries, serving for societies 
 which cannot manage this themselves, and at the same 
 time thereby instructing their officers and training them 
 to do the work themselves in the course of time. 
 
 When it comes to auditing, the case presents rather 
 greater difficulties. As a commercial nation we think 
 very much of it ; and more particularly at the present 
 moment suggestions are plentiful as to how we ought 
 to provide for it — mostly in the wrong way. The rule 
 observed in the Raiffeisen Union, that all balance sheets 
 and books and papers pertaining thereto shall be sent up 
 once a year to headquarters for "revision," has sprung 
 from the difficulty experienced in Germany, as elsewhere, in 
 finding sufficiently capable local auditors. It may be well 
 to point out that the German " revision " — already copied 
 in Austria and proposed in Italy— is in its original concep- 
 tion an exact counterpart to our own '■ audit," suggested by 
 such in the early days of Schulze Delitzsch — which has, 
 rightly enough, been expanded so as to become much 
 
EDUCATION. 337 
 
 more — more particularly where credit societies are con- 
 cerned — and now extending to an inquiry into the propriety 
 of managing bodies' action as a precaution for safety. 
 But, to speak of " audit " first, as we understand it — a 
 most essential point — we hea,r various new methods urged 
 upon us. One is to have a Government audit adopted — 
 of which M. Luzzatti, as an old co-operator, has declared, 
 with the hearty assent of many other co-operators of note, 
 that it must turn out illusory. Our Board of Agriculture 
 wishes to have the accounts of co-operative credit societies 
 audited by managers of Joint Stock Banks — which is like 
 sending a builder of palaces to supervise the building of a 
 cottage or a pigstye. What people want to be made to 
 understand is that there is an essential difference between 
 joint stock banking and co-operative credit banking, and 
 that auditing of co-operative societies' accounts requires an 
 intimate knowledge of Co-operation, which is only to be got 
 by special practice. Our Co-operative Union has auditors 
 authorised by the Treasury for this very purpose. In 
 Agricultural Co-operation we want men with similar 
 qualifications, and we shall have to train them. 
 
 When it comes to inspection — the German" revision," 
 which has provided such a pillar of strength to German 
 Credit Co-operation — such among ourselves as are willing 
 to concede it appear ready to entrust it just to " any one." 
 Our societies might have to pay dearly for that. The 
 matter wants to be learnt. 
 
 In Germany — where certainly popular schooling 
 cannot be said to be defective— very great attention 
 indeed is paid by Co-operative Unions to instruction in 
 these and other branches of knowledge. There are special 
 courses of lectures everywhere, in every province, made a 
 great point of, in which subjects are taught, either singly or 
 in groups. Attendance at these lectures keeps steadily in- 
 creasing from year to year. There are courses of two days, of 
 
338 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 three or four days, or a week, up to four weeks, whibh is i 
 Bavaria found to be the most desirable length of time. On 
 week's pupils, so the authorities report, have frankly avowe 
 that what they have learnt has very quickly evaporatec 
 Four weeks' pupils go home thoroughly well grounded- 
 in other matters as well. It is in these courses tha 
 lecturers and organisers are trained. The pupils are i 
 Bavaria all young men, of about twenty or a little ovei 
 deliberately restricted to such age. The Union and som 
 local authorities contribute towards their expenses, s 
 that the cost of the training is to every one reduced t 
 about thirty shiUings for the four weeks. Where course 
 are shorter it is brought down to less, even to five shilling 
 only. The authorities also provide some entertainments 
 so as to make things pleasant. But they study chiefl 
 to make the youths spend their evenings at meeting 
 arranged for the purpose, at which the subjects taugh 
 in the day time — and other matters connected with Cc 
 operation — are discussed. And the consequence is tha 
 these young men, who as a rule come to the training timi 
 and gauche and unable to express themselves, go awa 
 fairly good debaters and versed in public speaking. I 
 other parts of the Empire the qualification as to age is nc 
 observed in the same way. And there you have men- 
 and also women — of all ages and all callings flocking t 
 the lectures to qualify themselves for creditably fiUin 
 their places in societies — clergymen, schoolmasters, trades 
 men, and so on. The training of " revisors " — inspectors 
 as we should call them — is treated in a more serious wa 
 still. People do not, abroad, trust blindly to the cor 
 ceivably untrained Committee-men doing automatical! 
 what is right, and leave the rest to Providence. In Hei 
 Haas' Union there is a six months' annual course of trail 
 ing for " revisors," with an examination following an 
 the awarding of certificates. In such a Union of cours 
 
EDUCATION. 33S> 
 
 there is scope for making a living out of expertness in 
 " revising," and not a few people take the instruction up 
 with such an object in view. But there are others who 
 simply desire to qualify themselves thoroughly for good 
 work on co-operative Committees and Councils. In the 
 Austrian Union this useful practice has only been recently 
 introduced and for the present the Union is still content 
 with a three months' course, the utility of which has 
 already been demonstrated. In Germany these lectures 
 are found now to attract pupils of other nations. 
 Would it not be well to send some Englishman there ? 
 Those who employed him would have a better account 
 to give of their work. The index of subjects taught indeed 
 ranges ovet a wider field than would be at all necessary for 
 ourselves. In addition to book-keeping and auditing it 
 embraces co-operative law, the law specifically relating 
 to " Unions," the practice of " revision " and other 
 cognate matters. Law and regulations as to stamps and 
 taxes are more intricate and complicated in Germany and 
 Austria than among ourselves, and authorities not un- 
 frequently show themselves unduly grasping, for which 
 purpose " revisors " ought to be well instructed so as to 
 be able to fight them. That may account for somewhat 
 greater length of the ■' courses." But the general subject 
 certainly wants to be taught in its details, or there may 
 be losses, and even coUapses to deplore. 
 
 And there is the teaching of women. However much 
 some modem women may fret under the ordinance, 
 Providence has made us male and female and assigned to 
 each sex particular functions and occupations. There 
 are in Agriculture certain things which ate undoubtedly 
 better done by women, as there are others which naturally 
 fall to the share of men. And woman's province in Agri- 
 culture is by no means the least important. An Alsatian 
 proverb has it that a " farmer's wife can carry out of the 
 
340 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 farm in her apron more than the farmer can bring in on a 
 four-horse wagon." The complaint is frequent, and it 
 is not unwarranted, that the education of our country- 
 women in housewifery, and also in their own peculiar 
 province of Agriculture, has been too long and too greatly 
 neglected. Even though the milkpan has been superseded 
 by the separator, we cannot do without women. And 
 there would be many a one thankful to see cuisine a 
 I'anglaise replaced by something more appetising. Our 
 country has not remained altogether barren in the pro- 
 vision of educational institutions for country women. 
 But there is in good sooth plenty of room for more. We 
 know the foreign organisations of this kind best — by name 
 — from the Belgian Cercles de Fermiires, which have of 
 late come to be a good deal advertised, and which in truth 
 are highly useful institutions. But these in themselves 
 are only an offshoot from the associations abounding in 
 the United States and in Ontario, which last named province 
 is remarkably forward in the matter. It was from an 
 expedition of inquiry to the United States that M. De 
 Vuyst, of the Belgian Ministry of Agriculture, brought 
 home the idea which led to the establishment of the first 
 women's association at Leuze, in 1905. The United States 
 educational organisation, the Farmers' Educational and 
 Co-operative Union, with its membership of (as its Presi- 
 dent claims) about two millions, is of course grandiose, 
 but it is not all educational. And one does not know 
 how far, according to our ideas, it is " co-operative." 
 There is probably more " business " in it. The Canadian 
 institutions excel by their quality and their active work. 
 Since 1905 the Belgian " Cercles " have multiplied and 
 gathered much strength. There are now at least sixty. 
 Everywhere the movement has been taken up with en- 
 couraging vigour. The " Cercle " of Berlaer (Antwerp) 
 managed in less than two years to attract nearly two 
 
EDUCATION, 341 
 
 hundred members. The " Cercle " of Goor did even better 
 in the same time, and got well over two hundred. The 
 teaching is in some " Cercles " rather comprehensive. 
 Housewifery, dairy management, poultry management, 
 and so on are, as a matter of course, everywhere taught. 
 Housewifery includes the provinces of dress and rather 
 improved cuisine. Appended to it is the bringing "up of 
 •children. Gardening is also taught, alike as a matter of 
 business and for introducing brightness into farm life. 
 Beyond this, hygienics of the house and the stable are not 
 neglected. The co-operative Boerenbond and the Ministry 
 of Agriculture vie with one another in encouraging this 
 ■department of Education. 
 
 Female training for farm management and country 
 life are likewise paid marked attention to in France, where 
 ■one of the latest institutions busy with it is that named 
 after Jeanne d'Arc, occupying the Chateau d'Epluches, 
 near Pontoise. It was formed under the auspices of the 
 influential Societe des AgricuUeurs de France. This insti- 
 tution, however — Hke its sister institutions at Kerliven, 
 Coetlogon and elsewhere — is a regular college, with a 
 curriculum of two years, whereas in Belgium the method 
 of teaching employed is rather that of periodical gatherings, 
 advisedly fixed at rather long intervals, so as not to inter- 
 fere with work at home. They are intended simply as 
 ■" gatherings." Expense cannot under such circumstances 
 create any difficulty, for it is trifling. At Berlaer, for 
 instance, the subscription is 50 centimes (5d.), which 
 covers a family as well as a single person. 
 
 Instruction of women for rural purposes has spread 
 ■even into Russian Poland, where there is, since 1907, a 
 Ziemianki, numbering about 1,200 members, organised in 
 seventy-six " circles," so as to cover the entire " kingdom " 
 ,(of 1815), although the head management is at Warsaw. 
 
 The most methodical organisation is, as usual, to be 
 
342 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 met with in Germany, the Haushaltungsschulen (House- 
 wifery schools) of which — such as also render very useful 
 services in Switzerland — have repeatedly been held up 
 as models for imitation. There is, however, instruction 
 provided for all social grades, from the landed proprietor's 
 daughter down to the cottier's, and in occasional gatherings 
 as well as at schools and colleges. The movement has 
 gained a good foothold, more especially in Southern 
 Germany. The Wirthschaftliche Frauenschulen auf dem 
 Lande are designed as veritable " High Schools " for 
 women, after preparatory training elsewhere. On the 
 other hand, there are Wanderkurse, coming daily into 
 greater vogue, which are courses of lectures delivered by 
 itinerant lecturers, who carry all the necessary parapher- 
 nalia for demonstration about with them from village to 
 village, like the cattedre amhulanti and the late Sir Th. 
 Dyke Acland's " Model Dairy." These " courses " are 
 maintained by Associations. In Gladbach there is also 
 a society addressing itself specifically to the instruction of 
 women of the working class : Arbeiterwohl. In Prussia 
 special attention is paid by the Government to the super- 
 vision of the training of lecturers and teachers for such 
 institutions. The rural population is everywhere con- 
 sidered to have become the more intelligent, and certainly 
 the more prosperous, for such training. 
 
 But, apart from such technical or special instruction, 
 there wants to be also instruction in Co-operation, as a 
 general, all-embracing subject, for the entire movement. 
 For this, hkewise, our Co-operative Union has its quahfied 
 teachers, its regular courses of lectures, its discussions and 
 its prizes. We want something of the same sort for 
 Agriculture— though of course it need not, and indeed 
 could not, be of the same elaborate kind, calling for so 
 large an expenditure of time. On the other hand, it wants 
 to be more general, more widely distributed among the 
 
EDUCATION. 345 
 
 great mass of co-operators. Here is something for the 
 unoccupied winter evenings ! In Germany such lectures 
 are paid particular attention to. Here is the scholarum 
 index of one Union : (i) One hour, History of Co-operation ; 
 (2) One hour. Organisation of Societies ; (3) Two hours. 
 Credit Societies ; (4) Two hours, Purchase and Sale 
 Societies ; (5) One hour. Co-operative Societies of other 
 kinds ; (6) One hour. Social and Economic Questions. 
 Pupils are not only taught what they ought to do, but 
 also why they ought to do it. The lecturer discusses the 
 rules with them and explains their several objects ; and 
 so the pupils are prepared in general to act not only as 
 efficient officers or committee-men, but also in their turn 
 as good lecturers and organisers. How far away are 
 we still from this ! And yet we want something of the 
 same sort among our agricultural would-be co-operators. 
 And, although Schools and County Council Committees 
 can do something to disseminate knowledge on the subject, 
 the proper teachers indicated by the very subject itself 
 are practical co-operators. They possess the advantage 
 of being in constant touch with those whom they are 
 " :ippointed to enlighten, bone of their bone, flesh of their 
 flesh. Their teaching is not schoolmastering. It is rather 
 the teaching of a friend or a relative. Without proper 
 grounding in the principles of Co-operation co-operators 
 are only too apt to strain the practice of Co-operation to 
 serve other purposes — as appears from the late G. J, 
 Holyoake's frequent lament that there are "so many more 
 members of co-operative societies than there are genuine 
 co-operators." Dividend-hunting, over-centralisation, in- 
 troduction of pohtics, or agrarianism, and whatever other 
 abuses there may be, endangering both the good repute 
 and the success of Co-operation, spring from the fact that 
 co-operative principles have not been sufficiently mastered. 
 However, co-operative societies cannot stand still in 
 
344 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 their educational action at what concerns their own par- 
 ticular cause only. Their cause is their cause because it 
 is to serve for the improvement of Agriculture and the 
 greater welfare of those engaged in it. Even among the 
 most highly trained nations agricultural knowledge, with 
 the necessary modicum of chemistry, botany, and so on, 
 is found to call for very systematic teaching. The Danes 
 with their admirable High Schools provide for it. The 
 Italians further Agriculture by their useful cattedre ambu- 
 lanti — itinerant teachers with their apparatus — which are 
 in a manner a co-operative institution and certainly lead 
 up to Co-operation. Agricultural co-operative societies 
 cannot neglect this kind of teaching. 
 
 As to means for educating action at their disposal, 
 they have plenty, without any reason for fear of their 
 coming into collision or undue competition with the educa- 
 tional authorities of the land, or with the Board of Agricul- 
 ture — whose successful efforts to impart instruction through 
 its Journal and through useful leaflets deserve grateful 
 recognition. Co-operative organisations have the same 
 means open to them in a different way, more as a" family " 
 matter, to apply a French term : familial — appealing, it 
 may be, to a more limited class, but appealing to such 
 far more forcibly, through personal interest felt. We 
 could not yet hope to rival the Germans — except in the 
 " get-up " — in the diffusion of knowledge by special news- 
 papers — because we have not yet nearly as large a circle of 
 readers to minister to, or societies to rely upon to con- 
 tribute to the expense. But we shall do well to observe 
 that those papers there exercise a very powerful influence. 
 The same thing may be said of what is being done in 
 France, in Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and other countries 
 besides. In the Raiffeisen Union there are two distinct 
 newspaper services, both of which are highly effective— 
 the one for the Union generally, and the other for pro- 
 
EDUCATION. 345 
 
 vincial sections, the Raiffeisenbote, issued independently 
 by the Sectional Committees, and dealing with local as 
 well as with general subjects in a thoroughly popular way, 
 which is a main point. The efiEect is very perceptible! 
 Besides this there are leaflets, such as the Irish Agricul- 
 tural Organisation Society has issued in fairly considerable 
 number and of excellent quality. Such coloured diagrams 
 as have already been spoken of would make most useful 
 companions to leaflets. A coloured diagram under the 
 circumstances often teaches far more effectively, impress- 
 ing the knowledge imparted more readily and also more 
 lastingly upon the mind, than letterpress. And of course 
 there are lectures and classes, meetings and discussions, 
 explanations of practical experiments, and the like. 
 
 In the German Imperial Union there are furthermore 
 regular " Winterschools " and regular series of lectures, 
 with examinations following — and distinctions for merit. 
 
 And, lastly, cannot we turn our General Meetings, 
 alike of Unions, of Sections and of societies, to better 
 account as mediums for the improvement of our know- 
 ledge ? Abroad they take the shape of regular Con- 
 gresses. In the place of the hackneyed cut and dried 
 addresses delivered in England by the same familiar speakers 
 and applauded by an audience of " subscribers " rather than 
 agriculturists, abroad these gatherings assume the form of 
 Parliaments, in which points of interest to Agriculture 
 are freely discussed in a thoroughly practical spirit by 
 practical men. 
 
 The resolutions passed at such gatherings constitute in 
 Germany, in France, in Austria, in Italy, in Switzerland, 
 the accepted canons of local Co-operation. Why have 
 not we got anything of the kind ? Foreign Agricultural 
 Co-operative Unions could not do without it. Nor 
 should the caitedre ambulanti be omitted, supplemented 
 as they may be by repetitions of" Demonstration Trains." 
 
346 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 We may choose our own methods, according to the 
 circumstances of each case. The great point is that 
 Education as such, Education as a main item, Education 
 in Co-operation, in the mechanical services entering into 
 its practice, and Education in Agricultural Craftlore and 
 — following the example of some foreign nations — in 
 matters of the Household and of Women's work in Agricul- 
 ture — as in the Belgian Cercles des Fermieres — should be 
 placed prominently on the programmes of Co-operation, 
 in the very forefront. For no Co-operation can flourish 
 without Education. 
 
34? 
 
 XVI.— "FORCED" CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Co-operation being the thing that it is, it is not 
 surprising that both Governments and kindly disposed 
 individuals with long purses should have conceived a 
 desire to further and extend it as a benefit to mankind, 
 and reflected what steps might be taken for accomplishing 
 such end. Self-help, so it has been found, builds up very 
 solidly and securely, but in the earhest stages with dis- 
 appointing tardiness. What appears to call for remark 
 is that all such paternal solicitude, of which there is 
 plenty, has remained, thus far restricted almost entirely to 
 the agricultural application of Co-operation. Only where, as 
 in Germany and in Austria, dread of the " red peril " has 
 made Governments solicitous also for the welfare of what 
 are there termed " the middle classes," that is, the small 
 handicraftsmen and tradesmen, who are supposed to be 
 threatened with extinction between the upper millstone 
 of monster businesses and the nether one of rising ochlo- 
 cracy — which latter, of course, deals at Co-operative Stores, 
 have Governments been moved to exhibit an interest also 
 in industrial callings, admonishing those enrolled in them 
 to practise Co-operation in their turn, with Government 
 assistance, in self defence. 
 
 There is no denying that pure self-help's building is 
 at first only slow. But it lays a foundation which may 
 be depended upon in all circumstances and, once a certain 
 stage is reached, it develops as no other force can — as 
 witness the advance by veritable leaps and bounds of our 
 Co-operative Union. No " forcing " will ever equal that. 
 And developing, it produces results not purely material — 
 
34? CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 although these are in truth gigantic — ^but moral and 
 educational as well, such as no other power has yet been 
 able to bring forth. Therefore, perhaps, after all the 
 balance of advantage remains with self-help. There is no 
 State aid, for instance, that could possibly have produced 
 the wealth, the business, the industry and verve, the 
 educating and elevating potency of the societies com- 
 posing our Co-operative Union ; none which could 
 have raised common enterprise to the magnificent height 
 of the Schulze Delitzsch co-operative credit societies or 
 the Italian banche popolari. The thing is utterly in- 
 conceivable. And if you will take the trouble to inquire 
 of any representative co-operator of any of these self-help 
 organisations whether State aid or Patronage could have 
 yielded similar results, they wiU promptly reply that they 
 could not, simply because in giving their Eissistance these 
 two agencies infalhbly spoil the main Inaterial for success, 
 which is the Co-operator himself. They impart an entirely 
 false direction to the movement and so denaturate 
 it. The ringing, shining golden trappings with which 
 successful Co-operation is decked are ■ but accidents or 
 results. It is the self-reljTing man, led — and it may be, 
 compelled by necessity — ^to put forth the best efforts, both 
 of hand and of mind, of which he is capable, who 
 makes sound and successful Co-operation. Take that 
 element away, and what you raise up, plentiful though 
 it may be, will prove nothing but " Jerry " Co-operation, 
 ephemeral, Brummagem, with no lasting good in it. 
 
 To test the point, compare the success of the purely 
 self-help co-operative unions already mentioned — our own 
 Co-operative Union, the Schulze Dehtzsch societies, and 
 the Italian banche popolari — with the movements stimu- 
 lated by State aid or Patronage. The difference in 
 the result is striking. There are societies, there are 
 members, there is some material good. But the spirit. 
 
"FORCED" CO-OPERATION. 349. 
 
 which is everything, is wanting. And reckon up the 
 perfect " National Budgets " which have been lavished upon 
 these societies, and you will find that even the material 
 return is disappointing. Bred up in reUance upon others- 
 the people so bred seem to have lost all capacity for relying 
 upon themselves ; they lack the backbone, the nerve, the 
 fibre of the others. The assistance given was designed to 
 help them over the infant stage of the first rough 
 ground. However 
 
 " Ce que le poulain prend en dompture 
 II le maintient tant qu'il dure." 
 
 You cannot, as :Mr. Chamberlain has put it, " teach old 
 dogs new tricks." To raise up a British oak that will 
 make a seaworthy ship, you want to plant it of the right 
 sort, on exposed ground, where it will have to battle with 
 the winds and draw up its nourishment from the sub-soil 
 with its long roots laboriously sent out in every direction 
 in search of it, and so acquire toughness and hardness. 
 Plant an American oak in a carefully sheltered position, 
 and you will have a tree shooting up almost like a "Jonah's 
 gourd " ; but its timber will waste and break almost Hke 
 matchwood. 
 
 As a telling instance ol the failure of "forcing," look 
 at the recent collapse of so many " Catholic " Village 
 Banks in Italy ! In 1907 there were in Italy 1,526 casse 
 rurali — the overwhelming majority being " Catholic," 
 because the support of the village priest is as a matter of 
 course sought for when a society is being formed, and the 
 priest stands under the bishop. In 1911, there were only 
 1,140. Those collapsed were almost entirely" Cathohc." 
 And necessarily so. Because neutral casse are well looked 
 after by men who understand viUage banking. They may be 
 smaU, poor, weak in funds. But they are under business 
 management and properly controlled. The " Catholic " 
 banks are under the Bishop, grouped in diocesan Unions, 
 
350 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 and their main object is to promote " Catholicism." 
 There have been some disgraceful frauds and embezzle- 
 ments, such as, it appears, the formal placing of the 
 institutions under the guardianship of patron saints has 
 proved powerless to avert. Absconding prieSt-managers 
 were not in every instance " ecclesiastically " bad. On 
 the contrary, one, at any rate, who dared no longer show 
 his face in his parish after employing the money of deposi- 
 tors in setting up a handsome rectory for himself — has 
 been rewarded by promotion in Rome. However, they 
 have made a decided mull of bank management. Except 
 for Church " forcing " such management would not have 
 been committed to them. It was John Bunyan's friend 
 ' Mr. By-ends " who, promoting, at the same time also 
 spoilt " Co-operation." 
 
 There is, no doubt, assistance which authorities and 
 well-wishers may legitimately give, with good effect, to 
 stimulate Co-operation. Unfortunately, our actual well- 
 wishers, never rising above Mr. Sangsby's modest 
 conception of helpfulness, think of assistance only in 
 " half-crowns." Now money is an excellent servant, but 
 a wretchedly bad master. Mr. Gladstone, among the 
 many good rules that he has laid down for the world, spoke 
 out in full frankness — and never more truly — on this 
 point when the Industrial and Provident Societies Act — 
 wliich is our " Co-operative Act " — was before the House 
 of Commons. Encourage Co-operation, so in effect he 
 said, grant to it exemption from fees, stamps and taxes ; 
 but do not give it money ! 
 
 Nevertheless it is just money or money's worth — 
 — such as, abroad, the purchase of co-operatively raised 
 produce, at preferential prices, for the public service — 
 that authorities of the present day — even Mr. Gladstone's 
 own successors in office — persist in desiring to force upon 
 Co-operation — coupled, it is true, with welcome and legiti- 
 
 A' 
 
"FORCED" CO-OPERATION. 351 
 
 mate exemptions from some taxes and fees,. but also with 
 something of quite a different character, which is anything 
 but " encouraging." We shall have to return to that. 
 But let us deal first with purely money help ! 
 
 Such coddling assistance has, as observed, nowhere 
 produced any real good. It has conjured up " Potemkin 
 villages " — the work of an imaginative brush upon patient 
 ■Ccinvas, with which a sovereign's eye might be tricked, 
 but which stand for no production and no wealth. " Lean- 
 tos," ever dependent upon the wall against which they 
 are set up, parasites nourished upon taxpayers' money, 
 creepers with neither stem nor root to support them, they 
 remain, vegetating, providing a httle welcome shelter, it 
 is true, for a time, and some little material fruit, but never 
 growing into self-sufficing plants, never adding to the real 
 permanent wealth of their country, never nerving the men 
 dependent upon them for protection to greater strength. 
 You cannot get over the principle of Nature that good 
 results have to be worked for. Ardua quae pulchra. 
 
 It is bound to impress one as just a httle odd, by the 
 way, that our Government — which now ranks among the 
 best State-aiders going — should have chosen just the 
 present moment for putting its new idea into practice. 
 Odd — because on the one hand,' we have the most brilliant 
 proof of the sufficiency of pure Self-help that has ever 
 been provided continually before our eyes in our " indus- 
 trial " co-operative movement. What " industrial " work- 
 ing men have accomphshed small holders and farmers 
 may assuredly likewise achieve. They are, in truth, much 
 better equipped for this work than were the original Roch- 
 dale weavers. The year 1870 has gone by, bringing with it 
 universal Education. They have an instructive example 
 placed before them, which the weavers had not. Their 
 path is therefore marked out for them beforehand. And 
 odd, once more — because State-aided Co-operation is at 
 
352 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 the moment openly discredited. It is just at the present 
 time that foreign co-operators, reared up on State aid, 
 are deliberately throwing off its embarrassing golden 
 shackles, because they find them too heavy to bear. The 
 first sweetness in the mouth has given place to very 
 trying bitterness in the stomach. 
 
 The explanation probably is that our Board of Agri- 
 culture is a most warm-hearted supporter of the Inter- 
 national Institute of Agriculture, the contributions to 
 whose very instructive and valuable volumes are in the 
 main, if not exclusively, drawn from official sources, and 
 accordingly not unnaturally make a little broad the 
 phylacteries of Government generosity and paint the 
 supposed success in brilliant " rose colour," never stopping 
 to mention the many disappointments of which the 
 readers of unofficial prints in the several countries, and 
 the traveller with unbiassed mind who visits the scenes, 
 are painfully aware. From what is there related one 
 could never tell what costly collapses have taken place^ 
 more specifically among Government-supported granaries- 
 and vine growers' societies, and how many Government- 
 assisted associations are kept up at the taxpayers' cost, 
 really only for show ; nor of the dire troubles that open- 
 handed Governments are experiencing in endeavouring to 
 train the helpless contadino impreparato to what is intended 
 to pass muster as " Co-operation " ; nor of the perverse 
 refractoriness with which the French Government-assisted 
 agriculturist refuses to accumulate reserve funds in his 
 credit societies or to commit himself to serious liability, 
 to effect both which objects the State help given was 
 avowedly granted. 
 
 And of course they tell nothing of that open revolt 
 against Government assistance now going on in at least 
 two countries, in which such assistance has been put to- 
 the test. 
 
'•FORCED- CO-OPEHAllON. 353 
 
 In Germany Agricultural Co-operation is up in arms 
 against the State-endowed Bank, which was specially 
 created, with a very large capital— £3,750,000 of tax- 
 payers' money— to " finance " it, lending its aid in the 
 ■shape of advances under market rate. That lastnamed 
 promise has been kept, as the chief of the great Raiffeisen 
 Union recently pointed out in Parliament, only " in a 
 Pickwickian sense." " We have had to pay 7^ per cent. ! " 
 so he exclaimed. The purely joint stock " Dresdner 
 Bank " now actually gives the said Union precisely the 
 same aid on more hberal terms, as a mere matter of busi- 
 ness. In France, where the very liberally granted Credit 
 Agricole is administered in a most enhghtened manner 
 by a peculiarly well fitted chief, advancing pubhc money 
 plentifully, absolutely free of interest, a representative 
 speaker, M. de Marcillac, the other day declared at the 
 annual meeting of the SociHe des Agriculteurs de France, 
 amid approving cries from his hearers, that the position into 
 into which dependence upon the State had put societies 
 had become intolerable, and that other means must 
 accordingly be found to obtain the money required, on 
 businesslike, but not in their nature restricting terms. 
 The same judgment has since been heartily endorsed 
 by resolutions of great provincial Unions, as for instance 
 by that of the Perigord and the Limousin. 
 
 And in Italy the failure of those very bountiful, but 
 taultily devised schemes for bringing prosperity, through 
 what is by courtesy termed " Co-operation," to the long 
 neglected South — where the peasantry, now the sport 
 of landlords' caprice and greed, stand in need of nothing 
 so much as of fixity of tenure — is the remark of all 
 the public and the disappointment of those who wish the 
 South well. An official report recently issued* practically 
 
 * Aw. Allessandro Baccaglini, La Legislazione Italiana sul 
 Credito Agrario. Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria a Com- 
 ■mprrio TOTT. 
 
354 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 admits that what is there wanted is not coddhng from 
 above but co-operative organisation from below, on lines 
 which, in point of fact, exactly correspond to those adopted 
 in the Raiffeisen societies. It is the men who are first 
 wanted, not the money. 
 
 It is a false conception of Co-operation altogether to 
 judge of it purely by the money standard, and to want 
 to promote it by providing cash, which in truth is a 
 very dangerous article to hold, before there is business to 
 require it, since it powerfully tempts to improvident 
 employment, for employment's sake, where provident 
 restraint should be the main guiding principle. Money, 
 so one may be thankful to think, is to be got. The late 
 Lord Salisbury in a memorable passage described it as 
 " overflowing in the coffers of the bankers," only waiting 
 for an opportunity of profitable employment. The quali- 
 ties which go to make a co-operator, and therefore Co- 
 operation, and which of themselves entitle to being trusted 
 with money, are not so easily obtained. Look at India f 
 Its Co-operation is stiU naturally imperfect in method ; 
 but it is sound in spirit. And nowhere in the world has 
 there been so rapid a growth of Co-operation, once it was 
 set on foot. When in 1904 Lord Curzon gave the Royal 
 Assent to the Bill which authorises its practice, he pointedly 
 referred to the complaints that had been made on the 
 score of what was considered the " grudging " money 
 support offered by the Crown. It was not " grudging- 
 ness," so Lord Curzon explained, which had prompted the 
 rather narrow hmitation of money help, but solicitude for 
 Co-operation, in deference to my opinion pronounced, that, 
 much money help must needs mean the spoiling of the 
 quality of the Co-operation to be created, instead of 
 improving it. Results have amply justified Lord Curzon's 
 apparent chariness. Money has come forth abundantly — 
 even in provinces the Registrars of which had protested 
 
-FORCED" CO-OPERATION. 355 
 
 to me that deposits were there wholly out of the question. 
 They have come in all the same. Rayats have found a 
 few spare annas to deposit. Native well-wishers have 
 given more substantial support. Some of that hidden 
 treasure, the unfruitful concealment of which is made a 
 subject of chronic complaint, has come out of its hiding 
 places. Co-operative banks have learnt how to strengthen 
 their position by combining to the point that Joint Stock 
 Banks gladly open cash credits to them. In at least two 
 provinces State help has ere now been declared to have 
 become wholly superfluous. And throwing Indians upon 
 their own resources has very naturally brought out their 
 mettle. It has educated them and made them ask for 
 more education, general as well as technical. They want 
 to have better implements, to employ more fertilisers, 
 to be taught to farm better. A Government dole would 
 never have produced such results. You have the proof 
 in the takkavi, which afford a little material benefit, but 
 have to be pressed upon an inappreciative peasantry. 
 
 There is no greater delusion than that you can pro- 
 mote Co-operation by coddling it with money. It is the 
 effort necessary to obtain money which creates the requisite 
 nerve. 
 
 The conspicuous failure of Government assistance in 
 the matter of corn elevators in Germany has already been 
 called attention to,- contrasting as it does with after all 
 fair success in cases in which farmers have been left to 
 shift for themselves. The avowal of even more pronounced 
 failure still in Manitoba has come in opportunely to press 
 the lesson home. A well-meaning Government, heedless 
 more Britannico of German experience, considered that 
 it would be serving Agriculture by setting up elevators 
 at Government expense for the exportation of corn. 
 However the elevators, pretentious as they were, had to 
 be closed, having accomphshed nothing except to waste 
 
356 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 a considerable sum of public money. The Government, 
 so Mr. Roblin, the Prime Minister, has explained, " could 
 not compel the farmers to ship through the Government 
 elevators, and at various points there were no buyers." 
 Farmers would go to their own accustomed shipment 
 places, from which they were to be diverted only by action 
 fuUy of their own. 
 
 But it is not merely the enervating effect of patrons' 
 doles which accounts for failure. There are few 
 doles dealt out, more especially by a Government, coupled 
 with which something else is not at the same time given, 
 which "something" is distinctly injurious. Nobody ob- 
 jects to money spent in the right way — as a right way there 
 must be where the object to be attained is one of common 
 benefit. That way will still be shown. But as the money is 
 now given — ^and proposed to be given in greater abundance 
 in this country — there is something noxious that goes with 
 it. And that is Government influence and Government 
 dictation on a matter on which a Government is by no 
 sort of means a qualified judge, depriving Co-operation 
 of all the freedom of independent initiative and action, 
 such as is indispensable for its success. It is sometimes 
 sought to make a point of the fact that what money is 
 given is expressly not given for business purposes, so as to 
 place traders at a disadvantage — as if that purified State 
 assistance from all its mischief! Abroad, so it deserves 
 to be pointed out, people are not everywhere equally 
 ■squeamish. There is not a little money there given for 
 business purposes. And we have heard of manures, 
 implements and the like being sold in Ireland under cost 
 price — that is, in part at the taxpayers' expense, to the 
 traders' detriment — by the Department of Agriculture. 
 But put that aside as not generally appljdng among 
 ourselves ! Nevertheless once money is given you 
 cannot get away from the immutable fact that, as the late 
 
••FORCED" CO-OPERATION. 35; 
 
 Dr. Miquel, then Prussian Minister of Finance, expressly 
 explained in Parliament, when deaHng with this very 
 point, that " Who pays, governs." It is the man who 
 pays the piper who caUs the tune. And in this case he 
 does call it. And having a master other than itself is 
 unavoidably destructive of sound Co-operation. For 
 Co-operation is not a thing that men can be- put to by 
 pulling a string or driUing them into the performance of 
 some mechanical action, but can be the product only of 
 their own free unrestrained will. They must act for 
 themselves, not suffer themselves to be moved hke pawns 
 on a chessboard. Co-operation is by its very nature a 
 republican institution, not a panem et cir censes benefaction. 
 A Government in fact cannot possibly know what is 
 wanted in Co-operation. No more can, by the way, 
 broad acred squires or wealthy politicians. It is the 
 donkey himself, as the French proverb aptly has it, who 
 knows best whefe the harness galls him ; and he alone 
 can tell what is likely to bring him rehef. 
 
 There are two kinds of mischief, more particularly, 
 which interference by Government — or by patrons — 
 habitually produces. 
 
 In the first place the paying party claims to have its 
 say — and that say is intended to be decisive — in the 
 management of co-operative organisations. That claim 
 is, in the Ccise of the State, supported by the contention 
 that the Government, dealing with public money and 
 being responsible to Parhament for its employment, is 
 in justice entitled to effective safeguards against mis- 
 employment. That is perfectly true. But it does not 
 imply that the Government itself should direct such 
 employment, which makes Co-operation something essen- 
 tially different from that which it calls itself. In the 
 worst case a right of veto would suffice. But we are not 
 so hard driven as to have to fall back upon that. There 
 
 Y 
 
358 CO-OPBRATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 are plenty of means available for checking the expenditure 
 of what was not given for a Department to expend, but 
 for the benefit of Co-operation. Neither Parliament nor 
 Development Commissioners designed any of the money for 
 the benefit of the Department. All the Government's func- 
 tion in the matter is to see that the money is not misappro- 
 priated. That may be done without directing its expen- 
 diture. However, the Government nominee sitting at the 
 Committee table necessarily becomes an overlord, whose 
 opinion almost amounts to a command. And that is quite 
 inconsistent with the idea of Co-operation. In Ireland we 
 have been told of the nominees of the Department vetoing 
 propaganda in certain parts of the country. The whole 
 conception of such a state of things is contrariant to 
 Co-operation. 
 
 In the second place, where a public Department 
 presumes practically to direct, even only propaganda, we 
 find that people outside are not merely taught what Co- 
 operation is supposed to be and invited to practise it for 
 themselves, but are urged to accept it at the Government's 
 hands with — in the case of banks, at any rate — the prin- 
 ciples of rules laid down for them. In some foreign 
 countries pressure goes further, and according to the 
 number of " co-operative " societies (mainly banks) formed 
 in a district is the administrative officer's promotion. A 
 Government not unnaturally wants to have something to 
 show for its outlay of Parliamentary money ; and it 
 makes number the test. Now whatever you may call what- 
 ever results from this, it cannot be Co-operation. It may 
 be compliance with the form of Co-operation. It is not 
 the adoption of its substance. And Co-operation so 
 forced upon people is not hkely to last or to bear good 
 fruit. There can be no other foundation for good Co- 
 operation than the members' own conviction that they 
 want it, and their resolution to make it succeed. 
 
■' FORCED ■■ CO-OPERATION. 359 
 
 There is, as it happens, quite sufficient room for action 
 by pril^ate well wishers and authorities in furtherance of 
 Co-operation, if they only choose to occupy it. And nobody 
 will grudge even ample money expended upon such. Its 
 description may be summed up in the word " Education." 
 And Education may under this aspect very well be made 
 to include propaganda, so long as authorities are willing 
 to permit propaganda to take its own free course, watching 
 only as just stewards of the public purse over the employ- 
 ment of public money. Propaganda cannot be judged 
 under the same aspect cLS business Co-operation, because 
 it cannot ta any case be made self-supporting. It neces- 
 sarily means pure outlay. And where — cis has hitherto, 
 unfortunately, been the case in England — public spirit 
 is lacking to supply the means by private donations — 
 which is by far the most desirable way of meeting the cost 
 ^ne cannot judge authorities harshly for devoting pubhc 
 money to what is, after all, purely instructive and for the 
 public good. But it should stop short of the employment 
 of pressure or dictation. 
 
 However, we want instruction of other sorts as well. 
 There are elementary schools, there are continuation 
 schools, there are Agricultural Colleges. Co-operation has 
 now become so important a factor in economic life, so 
 much of a main subject in the prosecution of Agriculture, 
 that one may well ask for it to be assigned a place in the 
 popular school programme. Money bestowed upon the 
 teaching of Co-operation by properly qualified teachers 
 would probably be found well employed. There is no 
 more effective help given to Co-operation in Agriculture 
 in France than by those deserving departmental professors, 
 whose only shortcoming is that they are underpaid. 
 They are now to receive a more dignified title, as 
 "Directors of Agriculture," but without any remedy 
 being applied to the said defect, There is hterature 
 
36o CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 to be distributed — although the viva vox is always 
 more effective, where there is an elementary class to 
 deal with. While Co-operation, whose proper charge 
 it is, is weak, one could scarcely grumble at the 
 Government establishing such analytical stations as prove 
 a boon, say, in the kingdom of Saxony, but also elsewhere, 
 where fertilisers, feeding stuffs and seeds are officially 
 tested under an arrangement in which makers and growers 
 may join, and which assures to the small farmer — ^who 
 cannot afford for this purpose to join the " Royal" Society 
 — the certainty of obtaining his small quantities of genuine 
 quality. And there are similar outlets for Government 
 beneficence to be found in other directions. Such careful 
 inquiries by competent men as that undertaken in Germany 
 in 191 1, by order of the Board of Agriculture, to ascertain 
 exactly what is being done in more advanced countries — 
 or even elsewhere^n the matter of Agricultural Co-opera- 
 tion are decidedly worth encouraging. They are bound 
 to teach more even than the excellent reports in the 
 Bulletin of the Institute at Rome. 
 
 There is indeed a wide field open for Government 
 action in the direction of collecting information and 
 diffusing knowledge. But at its clearly observable limits 
 its action ought to stop, or it will, like a bad doctor, 
 produce in the patient disease rather than health. Public 
 expenditure under such head is admissible, because the 
 service to be rendered is a public one, for the rendering 
 of which the country as a whole would be the better. 
 But subsidising co-operative business, extorting a pound 
 of flesh, in the shape of dictation, for the pecuniary support 
 given to propaganda, and authoritative influence used to 
 make people form societies who are not prompted to do 
 so by their own free resolution, are cankerous seeds of 
 mischief which cannot do otherwise than corrupt that 
 which they are ostensibly designed to benefit, 
 
361 
 
 XVII.— CONCLUSION. 
 
 Brief and incomplete as necessarily is the account 
 here given of the achievements of Co-operation, demon- 
 strating its power and its resources in its appHcation to 
 Agriculture, enough has probably been said to show what 
 a most valuable ally it provides for that calling, still our 
 foremost national " interest " — about the troubles of which 
 we hear so much, that it really seems as if the classical 
 " rustica gens optima flens " had become an accepted 
 axiom. We find Co-operation, even in its infant stage, 
 in which only we as yet have it here, cheapening suppHes^ 
 increasing returns, strengthening human power for work.-. 
 Everybody who has tried it bears witness to this, ililk, 
 ■eggs, corn, all fetch better prices ; and implements, 
 feeding stuffs and fertilisers are bought with less money. 
 The reckoning up of its benefits should not, however, be 
 restricted to the consideration of gain directly calculable 
 in money. The indirect and mediate effects of Co-opera- ^ 
 tion, its diffusion of knowledge, its remarkable educational 
 capacity, its powerful stimulation of thought, which, ■ 
 among them, teach men to cultivate better, to select the 
 most paying crops for each particular case, to turn their 
 produce to more profitable account, to settle in groups, 
 promoting wellbeing all round, and to make the country 
 "the more prosperous and the happier, and its immeasurable 
 value as enabling us at length to make the rural social 
 reform so long fondly dreamt of, so often attempted, a 
 palpable reality, by producing once more a peasantry, 
 comfortably and permanently settled on the soil, ought 
 certainly not to be left out of account. 
 
362 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 There are, as observed, services which Co-operation 
 has it in its power to render, which have not been spoken 
 of. One of these — ^undoubtedly important to our rural 
 population, though not directly agricultural — deserves 
 at any rate brief mention. There are, as we know, " twelve 
 hours in the day," all of which are not taken up with farm 
 work. There are seasons during which the balance of 
 time not so appropriated preponderates. All such hours 
 need not, surely, be spent in idleness. And there will 
 always be room for more earning. It is for such hours 
 that domestic industries, such as may be taken up and 
 dropped at pleasure, and do not demand absence from 
 home, seem to have been designed, capable of employing 
 idle hands at profitable work — basket making, wood 
 carving, elementary metal work, embroidery, lacemaking, 
 crochet and the like. And it is for Co-operation to pro- 
 mote them, because, as it happens. Co-operation alone 
 has it in its power to check and subdue the hateful abuse 
 of " sweating," which naturally fastens and fattens upon 
 such industries, in which the dealer becomes the master. 
 
 There is no denying the utility of these industries. 
 What would Lorraine be without its lacemaking and 
 embroidery — ^the latter of which, as it happens, yields 
 good pay ? And what the Black Forest, Thuringia and the 
 Eifel mountains without their very varied domestic 
 industries, ranging from meerschaum to clocks and wire- 
 work, which supplement Agriculture ? The erst barren 
 and deserted Eifel has become civiUsed to almost as great 
 an extent by the rural industries there introduced, as 
 by the measures taken for the promotion of its Agriculture. 
 However it is difficult to keep out "sweating." Without 
 Co-operation, do Governments and authorities what 
 they will, the peasant or country woman, living in their 
 cottage, far off from the busy world, have no means of 
 disposing of their handiwork otherwise than by selling it 
 
CONCLUSION. 363 
 
 to a dealer who, making the most of his opportunities, 
 becomes a veritable slave driver. Co-operation brings 
 in the " cash nexus " on its side, substituting itself for 
 the dealer, and " sweating " goes out. 
 
 We have plenty of good material for such rural indus- 
 tries in our three kingdoms, and plenty of room for them. 
 The periodical shows of articles of domestic work produced 
 in Ireland, among the very population whose employment 
 we are here contemplating, indicate an undoubted capacity, 
 in the shape of good work, good taste and originality in 
 design. The pity is that thus far the pursuit of such 
 industries has not been carried very far. The Irish 
 Agricultural Organisation Society, with its limited means, 
 could not, any more than John Bright, drive three or 
 four omnibuses abreast through Temple Bar. And where 
 a choice has to be made among subjects, it is the most 
 urgent, naturally, which takes the cake. Now that the 
 " United Irishwomen " have come upon the scene, with 
 their feminine power of influencing and gaining over 
 people, and their patriotic fervour and energy, one may 
 probably hope to see a new leaf turned over in this respect. 
 
 It remains to consider what use we in this country 
 are making of Co-operation in its application to Agricul- 
 ture, and what room there is for its further extension. 
 
 Long as we have lagged behind, we have at length 
 made a beginning. The mantle which in the sixties and 
 seventies creditably clothed Vansittart Neale and his 
 fellow workers, who were true co-operators, has fallen 
 upon other shoulders. The world has advanced since then. 
 Light has come instructingly and guidingly — as in the 
 matter of Christianity by the Bosham Monks — from Ireland, 
 where the admirable work done by Sir Horace Plunkett 
 and his colleagues has, in the words of so high an authority 
 as Sir Horace's own successor in office, created a " new 
 Ireland " — ^in his amended opinion deserving of the long 
 
364 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 desired gift of power to govern itself. Such example could 
 not fail to have its effect, iaciting to imitation, upon England 
 and Scotland. My own humble efforts to form a co-opera- 
 tive supply society in East Sussex in 1883 failed. However, 
 in 1899, under the leadership of the late Lord Wenlock, 
 we formed — at the prompting of Mr. W. L. Charleton, 
 one of Sir Horace's pupils — ^the " British Agricultural 
 Organisation Society," which, upon the collapse of the 
 late Lord Winchilsea's "Union," in 1900, took in the 
 " rump " of that illfated institution, and so became with 
 it the " Agricultural Organisation Society," without 
 any prefix. With the help of a very efficient Secretary, 
 to whose energy and judgment the results thus far obtained 
 are mainly due, we have done pioneer's work which, 
 revealing the presence of decidedly favouring conditions, 
 of plenty of excellent raw material for Agricultural Co- 
 operation, and a ready disposition to be taught and practise 
 it, unquestionably augurs well for the future, if we will 
 only proceed on the right lines. Such a society as that 
 of the Eastern Counties will bear comparison with any 
 agricultural co-operative society throughout the world. 
 It brings out very clearly our old boasted practical sense 
 which, working with simple means, does not require 
 the elaborate arrangements and laboured construction 
 of some foreign organisations. There are other societies 
 as good. And the spirit shown, say, by our Welsh sections, 
 is full of promise. Our methods for collectively selling 
 live stock are as good as any that have yet been devised. 
 The activity of the National Poultry Organisation Society 
 has placed us, in the matter of technical instruction on 
 the raising of eggs and poultry, at the head of nations. 
 Improved fruit grading and packing have by their success 
 secured converts, whose improved takings may be counted 
 upon to stimulate a zeal in others. And our Co-operative 
 Insurance has made a good beginning. 
 
CONCLUSION. 365 
 
 Indeed, although, to quote the words of a high 
 authority in the Government Department dealing with 
 this very matter, everything that is done here still appears 
 " terribly small " in comparison with what is done abroad, 
 all round the field appears " white unto harvest," calling 
 for labourers to put their sickle into the corn. In our 
 attempts to garner in that harvest— or, more correctly 
 speaking, to prepare the ground for its growth— we have 
 in the main — ^with sundry aberrations, which there is 
 no denying might have been avoided — gone to work 
 upon the right lines. Only in the promotion of agricul- 
 tural credit societies have there been — in England, unlike 
 what has happened in Ireland — some rather serious de- 
 partures from good principle, such as have, to my regret, 
 compelled me to dissociate myself from the work of the 
 society of which nevertheless I am one of the oldest 
 members — work which, in truth, was begun as long as 
 nineteen years ago, by the Agricultural Banks Association, 
 of which Hkewise, on account of false practice pursued, 
 I could remain a member only for less than a year. There 
 is a prospect now happily of that long continued mistake 
 being set right. At any rate the two most vicious rules, 
 to which, after repeated private warnings, I felt bound 
 to take exception publicly in " Co-operative Banking," 
 have now been — ^unfortunately only provisionally — altered. 
 
 It is perfectly intelligible how on new ground, and 
 among people not practically familiar with the subject 
 — however full of good zeal they might be — even very 
 essential principles should fail to be at once understood. 
 For Co-operative Banking undoubtedly is a thing f>er se. 
 However, in the absence of knowledge of one's own it is 
 generally held to be not a bad pohcy to follow the beaten 
 track of established experience. And certainly it cannot 
 be right to dub credit societies of a quite new type " Raif- 
 feisen societies," which the successors of Raiffeisen would 
 rep 
 
j66 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 The principal aberration made of course is the dis- 
 :arding of safeguards which sixty years' experience has 
 ihown.to be absolutely indispensable, in the interest of 
 lecurity, and to which " Raiffeisen " co-operators attach 
 :he greatest value. It is of no use ignoring those dangers 
 ike a hopeful boy who, seeing only the smooth water and 
 ;he azure sky; does not hesitate to float his holiday boat 
 :or a sail across the sea. The very small amount of irk- 
 lomeness which precautions involve will be richly repaid 
 jy the safety thereby purchased. Very opportunely has 
 evidence been given before the Departmental Committee 
 m Agricultural Credit in Ireland, which is so much to the 
 point and so' richly instructive, that one would wish to 
 see it placed in the hands of every one who busies himself 
 with the organisa^tion or the supervision of agricultural 
 janks. And such people should be made to read it. It does 
 lot in the least justify the recklessly sweeping accusations 
 levelled by the. witness against existing banks, nor the 
 fierce hostility exhibited to the Irish Agricultural Organisa- 
 tion Society. .So far as the evil extends, the Irish Agri- 
 cultural Organisation Society is wholly innocent of it. 
 Similar things have occurred in other movements and are 
 bound to occur, so far as the proper precautions (the 
 adoption of which I have in vain tried for twenty years to 
 urge upon optimist promoters of such societies) are not 
 observed. And so far as the evil goes, it is not yet serious 
 md can easily be rectified. But, however much the 
 mischief actually done may have been exaggerated, there 
 can be no doubt that, owing to want of control, inspection 
 and holding committees in check, there has been careless 
 management, which as a matter of course — even though 
 it has not been aggravated by that fraud and embezzle- 
 nent which are certain to follow, should carelessness be 
 persisted in, nor by the adoption of that vicious principle 
 jf unequal rights for rich and poor — the wealthy becoming 
 
CONCLUSION. 367 
 
 the rulers, with strictly limited liabihty, whereas the poor 
 beneficiaries, ruled over, are to bear the burden of un- 
 limited liability— has led to loss. It will be a valuable help 
 to the course of Co-operative Bankiag if Mr. T. W. Russell's 
 evidence, given before the Departmental Committee, is 
 widely circulated and taken to heart. For, great blessing 
 that a soundly formed and carefully managed co-operative 
 bank is bound to become to its district, just as serious a 
 danger must be a bank improperly handled. And those 
 who try to persuade people to become members of banks 
 formed on altogether novel lines, approved by no one 
 except their own authors, would do well to bear in mind 
 what a serious responsibiUty they take upon themselves 
 in inducing others to stake their unlimited liability upon 
 such an untried system. The remedies suggested by 
 Mr. Russell, to wit Government inspection and banker's 
 audit, are whoUy beside the mark. And we do not want 
 them. The Registrar of Friendly Societies is there to 
 compel an audit. And we have much more trustworthy 
 inspection of our own than any Government Department 
 could provide. But the giving of Mr. Russell's evidence, 
 pointing out the dangers to be faced — ^never dreamt of 
 by English or Irish organisers — is a real service to the 
 cause of Co-operative Banking. Avoidance of such danger 
 is, of course, not all that has to be studied. There must 
 be proper organisation, giving to every one his rights, 
 not allowing the wealthy man — who, in the bargain, 
 is to rule the bank— to slip out with his limited guarantee 
 and casual attendances, whereas the poor man is to stake 
 his all, attend regularly on paia of dismissal, and submit 
 to being governed. If there is a wealthy man desirous 
 of helping, but unable to do so with personal service and 
 unwilling to pledge his liability, he had much better 
 content himself with paying in a deposit or giving a 
 guarantee, to which, as being a matter of contract, he 
 
58 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 lay attach what conditions he pleases. We cannot 
 ave two orders of members, or else patronage, in 
 bank. 
 
 There is reason, fortunately, to hope that bank pro- 
 lotion will in future be proceeded with on lines such as 
 xperts will be able to approve. 
 
 But right as, generally speaking, our forms of con- 
 retely applying Co-operation are, there is danger none 
 he less of our missing the aim that we are making for 
 y what is evidently a misconception of the co-operative 
 rinciple. We began — ^almost necessarily — as an oli- 
 archical body ; and an oligarchical body we have remained 
 3ng after the movement had developed to proportions 
 uch as plainly call for a very different form of organisa- 
 ion. We have settled things brevi manu in London, 
 .ccording to our own pleasure. Our constituents have 
 lot been consulted — except after the event — even upon 
 o vital a question as that of our taking the Government's 
 noney and becoming more or less its servant, in the 
 rery unco-operative form of a Joint Stock Company, 
 That form was readily accepted by our negotiator, in his 
 )wn words, as a matter of " Hobson's choice." The Irish, 
 )eing of better grit, resisted and easily carried the retention 
 )f their old co-operative form of organisation. Had our 
 legotiator fuUy understood the co-operative principle, 
 we might have done the same and so escaped critical re- 
 lections in co-operative quarters. Co-operation, so every 
 ;o-operator knows, is of its very essence a republican 
 nstitution, that wants to be governed by its own members, 
 IS a matter of constitutional principle. Nobody else, 
 be he ever so benevolent, can possibly determine for them^ 
 what they want and how that which they want is to be 
 provided. We have in truth, when following in its wake, 
 idopted the methods of the successful Irish Agricultural 
 Organisation Society, but not its spirit. The effect is 
 
CONCLUSION. 369. 
 
 at once visible if we compare a general meeting of the 
 Irish Society with one of our own. In Ireland all is life, 
 mterest, activity — because the meeting is a representative 
 gathering, a veritable co-operative Parhament, of which 
 the beneficiaries are full members, and which accordingly 
 means benefit to the movement. Everybody takes an 
 interest m things. Questions are freely discussed from 
 all points of view. There is no " patronage " about the 
 thing. The same remark apphes to the entire movement 
 and, among other things, to the Irish Homestead, the 
 Society's paper, which is full of letters from readers, which 
 are to the point and show that Co-operation is uppermost 
 in all members' minds. And when it comes to such a 
 question as resisting a " Department," which in virtue 
 of its official prerogative presumes to try to replace the 
 Society and its work and substitute for its sound co-opera- 
 tive methods the nondescript caricature of " non-con- 
 troversial " Co-operation — ^which is to exclude buying 
 and selling, that is, the two mainstays of Co-operation — 
 all stand up as one man for their Society. And surely 
 if there can be one man more entitled than any other to 
 prerogative privileges in the matter of directing the Society, 
 it is Sir Horace Plunkett, the creator of the Irish movement. 
 But to exercise such privileges would be to deco- operatise 
 Co-operation. At our English General Meetings, we have 
 in the main, non-beneficiary subscribers. There is talk ; 
 there is a cut and dried programme ; there are 
 complimentary resolutions. But everything done is 
 formal. There is no life in it. The Meeting is not 
 a Parliament. 
 
 What wonder that farmers hold back ! English 
 farmers do not want to be ruled over. Like British Colonies, 
 in Mr. Borden's phrase, they are not prepared to "con- 
 stitute themselves wards of self-appointed guardians." In 
 such indisposition they may be entirely wrong ; but they 
 
I70 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 lold that they know more about practical farming questions 
 ind their own wants than the most philanthropic patrons 
 hat can be met with. What wonder that small holders in 
 heir societies complain that the governing society is con- 
 lucted by "gentlemen" who know little or nothing about 
 mall holders' wants ! What wonder that co-operators — 
 veil meaning co-operators, thoroughly friendly to our move- 
 nent — ^tauntingly twit me in this wise : yes, you want 
 IS to buy your produce — ^and then you go to the Govern- 
 nent to beg for money ! I wiU not here go into the false 
 tarts that in our attempts to do for others what they 
 hould have done for themselves, we have been led to 
 nake. Our movement has long since attained proportions 
 arge enough to call imperatively for a democratic organi- 
 ation, making us a representative Union of Societies, 
 ;iving to every one his due, governing its action 
 )y the wishes of the members generally, and recruiting 
 ts rulers and advisers from the ranks of practical 
 igriculturists. 
 
 However, just at this point it looks as if things were 
 lestined to t)ecome worse rather than better. Under the 
 )argain concluded with the Government for the obtain- 
 nent of money — ^which is like that concluded between the 
 lorse and the man, for the purpose of hunting down the 
 tag ; the stag was indeed hunted down but the man 
 emained firmly seated on the horse's back — the Agricul- 
 ;ural Organisation Society becomes practically a depart- 
 nent tacked on to the Board of Agriculture. In the 
 vhole history of Co-operation such a thing has not been 
 leard of — except in Russia in pre-constitutional days ; 
 ind there the co-operators have fast enough rebelled. 
 'Jot the German Government, not the French, not the 
 Austrian, has dealt in this way. And in aU conscience 
 hey give money enough and interfere enough. But they 
 lo not man the Committee or Board. It is all very well 
 
CONCLUSION. 371 
 
 to say : oh, but the Government nominees on the 
 Board — a full half, after the Government has nominated 
 the whole first Board— will be in a minority. The 
 margin, if any, will be very small. And " who pays, 
 governs." 
 
 Apart from the faulty character thus given to the 
 ■organisation, the danger herein involved is this, that 
 farmers and small holders are likely to nourish the sus- 
 picion—they do so already— that what the Government 
 really desires is to make the Agricultural Organisation 
 Society, subsidised as it is, minister to it specifically for 
 •carrying out its Small Holdings policy. Now that policy, 
 although not by any means complete in itself — it wants 
 purchase added to tenancy — ^no doubt deserves hearty 
 support. But it does not by any means cover the entire 
 ground of " Co-operation in Agriculture." And it is not 
 overmuch appreciated by farmers — ^that is, by a very large 
 class of those very men for whom Co-operation is intended. 
 Thus the Agricultural Organisation Society runs a serious 
 danger of giving up to Government what was meant 
 for Agriculture, and in doing so of estranging the very 
 men to act for whose benefit it set out. 
 
 Once more, one may hope that the mistake committed 
 will be corrected before it has proceeded too far. Govern- 
 ment and the movement should undoubtedly be made to 
 work in unison and to help each other. But we may give 
 to the Government the things that are the Government's 
 and yet keep for Co-operation the things that are Co- 
 operation's. Government money may be purchased too 
 dearly. Co-operation, whether in Agriculture or in any- 
 thing else, can only succeed on repubUcan, representative 
 hues. You want every one concerned to join ; you want 
 every one who joins to take an active part ; you want life 
 in every fibre, help from every hand and every brain. That 
 can be brought about only by everyone being given his 
 
71 CO-OPERATION IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 wn full say. People do well and thoroughly only what they 
 of their own free will. Being asked to do what others 
 irect palsies the arm and lames the intellect. It is toO' 
 ite. for us to take up the cast off continental principle of 
 tie " limited understanding of the governed." Co-opera- 
 lon is a " soldiers' battle " and should be conducted by 
 tiose who are arrayed to win Victory for it. 
 
373 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Accounts, 24, 25, 27, 336. 
 Affittanze coUettive, 11, 13, 309. 
 Agrarianism, 161, 163. 
 Agreements, 225. 
 Agriculture, 3, 21, 38, 39, 329, 
 
 335, 337- 
 Agricultural Banks Association, 
 
 365- 
 Agricultural Co-operation in 
 
 England, 40, 108, 109. 
 Agricultural Organisation 
 
 Society, 36, 61, 98, 131, 182, 
 
 192, 221, 248, 286, 331, 333, 
 
 345, 364, 369, 370, 371- 
 Agricultural Syndicates, 9, 18, 
 
 40, 185, 190, 202, 212. 
 Area for Society, 160, 161, 230, 
 
 260, 293, 294. 
 Alpage, 206, 215, 274. 
 Associations syndicales, 274, 275, 
 
 323. 
 Audit, 24, 25, 27, 336, 337, 367- 
 Austria, 11, 45. 79, 96, 131, i73, 
 
 178, 179, 180, 188, 211, 236, 
 
 240, 257, 336, 339, 344- 
 Auxiliary Creameries, 88. 
 
 Bacon, 7, 31, 59, 66, 146, I49, 
 150, 152, 153, 154, 157, 164. 
 
 Baking, 65. 
 
 Bamstorf Live Stock Sale Soci- 
 ety, 146.- 
 
 Basel Store, 69, 88, 100. 
 
 Bavaques, 72. 
 
 Bavaria, 130, 137, i43, i44, 212, 
 215,338. 
 
 Beasts Sold Unseen, 160. 
 
 Beef Trust, 146. 
 
 Beetroot Sugar, 30, 59. 
 
 Belgium, 11, IS, I7, i73, 184, 
 188, 201, 208, 212, 213, 226, 
 229, 230, 231, 236, 244, 317, 
 340. 
 
 Bewdley Water Supply, 287. 
 
 Biggleswade Small Holdings 
 Society, 324, 326, 327. 
 
 Black Currants, 30, 186, 325, 
 
 Blairgowrie Fruit-growers, 66, 
 196, 197. 
 
 Board of Agriculture, 171, 305, 
 315, 316, 318, 328, 330, 332, 
 337, 344, 352, 360, 370. 
 
 Boerenbond, 11, 213, 226, 236. 
 
 Brand, 35, 6i, 66, 67, 78, 96, 98, 
 120, 157, 152, 196. 
 
 Brandsby Motor Cars, 2S5, 286. 
 
 Breeding, 200, 205, 206, 209, 
 213, 214, 217, 2i8, 219. 
 
 Breeds, 148, 151. 
 
 British Agricultural Organisa- 
 tion Society, 364. 
 
 British Dairy Farmers' Associa- 
 tion, 76. 
 
 Bulk, 26, 59, 71, 152, 224, 225. 
 
 Businesslike Management, 20, 
 91, 143, 154, 160, 162, 177, 
 189, 197, 257, 269, 349. 
 
 Butter-blending, 88. 
 
 Butter-making, 7, 31, 60, 66, 87, 
 97, 99, loi, 210. 
 
 Butter-testing, 67, 78. 
 
 Cabanes, 72. 
 
 Caenby Comer Motor Car, 286. 
 
 Canada, 340. 
 
 Cattedre ambulanti, 10, 51, 342, 
 
 344. 
 Cattle Banks, 160. 
 Cattle Insurance, 134, 240. 
 Central Banks, 5, 265, 266, 267, 
 
 268, 292. 
 Cercles de fermieres, 340, 346. 
 Charleton (W. L.'s Settlement 
 
 Scheme), 313. 
 Cheese, 58, y<), 80, 86, 98, 99, 
 
 205, 210. 
 
374 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Chemistry, 334. 
 Cider-pressing, 192. 
 Clearing House for Eggs, 120. 
 Cocoons, 180. 
 Cold Storage, 187. 
 Combination of Services, 8, 29, 
 
 45, 103, "I, 137, 281- 
 Communautes, 13. 
 Compulsory Dealing, 31, 33, 45, 
 
 54,84, 135, ISO, 155, 156, 163, 
 
 194, 296. 
 Comunanze, 13. 
 jCondensed MUk, 70. 
 Contests with Traders, 30, 51, 
 
 52, 70, 146, 147, 157, 178, 224. 
 Control, 114, 202, 207, 208, 212, 
 
 225, 230, 232, 256, 258, 263, 
 
 266. 
 Control Scheme (Irish), 97. 
 Control Societies, 35, 73, 78, 91, 
 
 95, 96, 137, 203, 204, 213, 334. 
 Co-operation, 23, 146, 200, 201, 
 
 321, 323, 329, 330, 335, 337, 
 
 342, 346, 357, 361, 369- 
 Co-operation begets Co-opera- 
 tion, 69, 103, 312, 321, 323. 
 Co-operative Credit, 14, 136, 
 
 141, 180, 251-273, 320, 321, 
 
 323, 337, 365, 367- 
 Go-operative Insurance Society, 
 
 224, 227, 245, 249, 250. 
 Co-operative Land-holding, 306, 
 
 308, 311. 
 Co-operative Wholesale Society, 
 
 47, 48, 49, 50, 112. 154, 169, 
 
 249. 
 Copenhagen Milk Supply Society, 
 
 73, 82, lOI. 
 Cottage Industries, 362. 
 Cotton, 180. 
 Counterfeit Co-operation, 2, 16, 
 
 17- 
 County Councils, 304, 305, 306, 
 313, 314, 318, 326, 328, 330, 
 
 342- 
 Cow Insurance, 134, 226, 230, 
 
 231, 238, 239, 240. 
 Cows, 206, 207, 2IO, 227. 
 Cream, 87. 
 Credit, 31, 42, 150, 202, 237. 
 
 Dairy Co-operation, 7, 10, 11, 
 29, 60, 68, 72, 74, 76, 77, 82. 
 
 Dealers' Wiles, 147. 
 
 Dealings with Non-Members, 
 162, 281, 323. 
 
 Deichgenossenschaften, 274, 275. 
 
 Delivery of Milk, 74, 85, 92. 
 
 Denmark, 6, 7, 8, 20, 28, 47, 49, 
 59, 60, 66, 72, 74, 76, 93, 95, 
 io8, 109, III, 116, 117, 119, 
 149, 203, 213, 218, 219, 220,^ 
 226, 228, 229, 230, 233, 234, 
 244, 286, 329, 344. 
 
 Departmental Committee on 
 Agricultural Credit, 366. 
 
 Depots, 61, 64, 193, 196. 
 
 Derbyshire, 95, 99. 
 
 Desiccation, 138, 175. 
 
 Dharma Golas, 129. 
 
 Diagrams, 333, 345- 
 
 Disasters, 31, 292, 349. 
 
 Discipline, 66, 68, 93, 107, 136, 
 177, 256, 263, 270. ' 
 
 Distilling, 173, 174, 175. 
 
 Distributive Co-operation, 47, 
 55, 169, 194. 
 
 Distributive Societies, 48, iii, 
 156, i6i, 168, 194, 196. 
 
 Donkeys, 219. 
 .[drainage, 274, 275. 
 
 Dresdner Milchversorgungsans- 
 talt, 73, 82, 86, loi, 102, 103. 
 
 Droujinas, 13. 
 
 East Anglian Farmers, 197, 
 198. 
 
 Eastern Counties Farmers' Co- 
 operative Association, 27, 33, 
 43, 66, 92, 98, 100, 103, 159, 
 161, 168, 196, 320, 364. 
 
 Eastern Swiss "Agricultural 
 Union, 46. 
 
 East Sussex Chicken Cramming, 
 105. 
 
 Economic Effects, 3, 14, 20, 40, 
 71,98, 106, 109, 127, 136, 137, 
 148, 153, 226, 276, 300, 301, 
 348. 
 
 Educational Effects, 3, 6, 9, 55, 
 57, 137, 260, 261, 323, 343. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 37S 
 
 Education, 329-346, 359. 
 
 Educational Courses, 337, 338, 
 339, 340, 343- 
 
 Egg Demonstration Train, 331. 
 
 Eggs, 7, 60, 63, 66, 105, 109, 1 14, 
 IIS, 116, 119, 127. 
 
 Eggs and Poultry (Disposal of), 
 105-123. 
 
 Eggs (Infertile), 115. 
 
 Egg Selling Clubs, no. 
 
 Egg Testing, n8. 
 
 Electric Lighting, 287. 
 
 Electric Niagara, 371. 
 
 Electric Power, 278, 287, 288, 
 289, 290, 291, 295, 301. 
 —Elevators (United States), 125. 
 
 England, 5, 82, 108, 109, 150, 
 275, 359, 365- 
 
 Essex County Education Com- 
 mittee, 98. 
 
 Experimental Plots, 332. 
 
 Expert Direction, 298. 
 
 Far Forest ^^^ATER Supply 
 Society, 275. 
 
 Federated Growers, 193, 197. 
 
 Fertilizers, 52, 53. 
 
 Finland, 6, 12, 183. 
 
 Fire Insurance, 222. 
 
 Fixity of Tenure, 305. 
 
 Flax, 170, 180. 
 
 Flowers, 59, 172. 
 
 France, 6, 9, 45, 59, 60, 71, 72, 
 loi, 109, 133, 145, 173, 179, 
 181, 182, 184, 185, 186, 187, 
 188, 192, 202, 218, 219, 241, 
 244, 247, 271, 276, 278, 282, 
 283, 294, 317, 323, 341, 344, 
 
 352, 353- 
 Freehold Settlement, 303, 311. 
 Fruit, 60, 66, 170, 171, 184, 185, 
 
 186, 188, 190, 191, 192, 197, 
 
 325- 
 Fruit Bottling, I97- 
 Fruit Culture Inquiry, 171, 184, 
 
 192. 
 Fruitier, 75. 
 Fmiti^res, 10, 58, 71, 75, 79, 
 
 274, 277- 
 
 Funds, 27, 31, 90, 117, 139, 150, 
 193, 199, 212, 225, 237, 238, 
 257, 264, 265, 268, 269, 276, 
 281, 296, 298, 314, 316, 317, 
 319, 354- 
 
 Germany, i, 3, 9, 59, 62, 75, 78, 
 79; 87, 96, 98, 106, 109, 117, 
 122, 125, 126, 128, 130, 131, 
 H5, 199, 204, 205, 210, 211, 
 ■215, 217, 222, 225, 229, 233, 
 236, 240, 246, 254, 257, 260, 
 27s, 282, 285, 287, 289, 291, 
 292, 300, 317, 318, 320, 326, 
 332, 337, 342, 343, 353, 355, 
 356. 
 
 Gillingham, 98. 
 
 Gladstone (W. E.), 170, 171, 350. 
 
 Gloucester and Malvern Motor 
 Car, 286. 
 
 Goats, 217, 230. 
 
 Gotzlow, 128. 
 
 Governing Bodies, 34, 258, 260, 
 261, 262, 263, 337, 338, 339. 
 343- 
 
 Grading, 35, 109, 119, 189, 190, 
 192, 196. 
 
 Graddemejerier, 87. 
 
 Grain (Disposal of), 58, 124-145. 
 
 Granaries, 31, 57, 59, 62, 124, 
 125, 126, 128, 133, 134, 136, 
 138, 139, 288, 355, 356. 
 
 Grapes, 186. 
 
 Great Britain, 12, 70, 82. 
 
 Haas (Dr.), 9, 34, 132. 
 Hail Averted, 276. 
 Hail Insurance, 222, 243, 244. 
 Hanover, 115, 127, 141, 160, 275. 
 Haushaltungsschulen, 342 . 
 Heeregaardsmejerier, 75. 
 Herd (Co-operative), 207, 209. 
 Heming Bacon Factory, 154. 
 Herzele, 1 1 . 
 
 High Schools, 6, 7, 329, 342. 
 Hops, 30, 170, 177, 178. 
 Hor^e Breeding, 218, 219. 
 Horse Clubs, 228. 
 -Horse Insurance, 229. 
 Horse Keeping, 279. 
 
3/6 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Horsham and District Agri- 
 cultural Society, 158. 
 Household Goods (Trade in), 10, • 
 
 45, 46, 47- 
 Housing, 306, 320. 
 Tlungary, 11, 223, 233, 243. 
 
 Implements, 278, 323. 
 Improved Quality, 71, 116, 210. 
 Independence, 133, 134, 158, 
 
 264. 
 India, 3, 180, 330, 354. 
 Indifference of Farmers, 6, 13. 
 Industrial Co-operation, 5, 32;, 
 
 351- 
 Industrial Crops, 325. 
 Inspection, 336, 367. 
 J^nsurance, 35, 222-250, 364. 
 Ireland, 46, 82, 83, 97, 108, 117, 
 
 176, 180, 181, 204, 356, 363. 
 Irish Agricultural Organisation 
 
 Society, 14, 52, 90, 97, 176, 
 
 363, 366., 368, 369- 
 irrigation, 274, 275. 
 Italy, 2, 10, II, 51, 52, 131, 179, 
 
 180, 188, 214, 243, 254, 306, 
 
 307, 317, 321, 336, 344, 352, 
 
 353- 
 
 Jam, 170, 171, 197. 
 
 kingsthorpe co-operative 
 Society, 323, 326, 327. 
 
 Xand, 39, 306. 
 
 Land Settlement, i, 11, 12, 56, 
 
 303, 309, 316, 321. 
 Land Tenure, 303-328. 
 Large Farmers Benefited, 4, 128, 
 
 137, 147- 
 Lean Stock Market, 148, 158, 
 
 , 162, 168. 
 Legal Advice, 35. 
 Leicester and Rutland Cattle 
 
 Improvement Society, 221. 
 Liability (Limited), 23, 257, 319. 
 Liability (Unlimited), 23, 31, 
 
 259, 260,. 261, 319. 
 -Life Insurance, 249. 
 Limits of Co-operation, 18, 252. 
 
 Live Stock Improvement, 2, 95, 
 
 99, 199-221. 
 ' Live Stock Insurance, 342, 
 Live Stock (Sale of), 26, 63, 146 
 
 169. 
 Lledrod Agricultural Society, 
 
 221. 
 Loyalty, 32, 33, 58, 195. 
 Luzzatti (Hon. L.), 17, 25, 26, 
 
 254, 337- 
 
 Machinery, 51, 269, 274, 278, 
 280, 323. 
 
 Machinery (Repairs), 5 1 . 
 
 Mallow (Ireland), 11;. 
 
 Manufacturing Goods, 50, 53, 54. 
 
 Marc, 173, 174. 
 
 Market, 43, 57, 58, 83, 107, 112, 
 133. 134, 148, 156, 158-162, 
 189, 191, 197, 206. 
 
 Meat Trade (Departmental Com- 
 mittee on), 146. 
 
 Mere Small Holdings, 312, 324, 
 326, 327, 
 
 Method, 140, 142, 159, 165, i66j 
 217, 220, 237, 239, 257, 327. 
 
 Milk, 63, 68, 104, 155, 203, 210. 
 
 Milk-testing, 95. 
 
 Mortgage Credit, 270-273, 317. 
 
 Motor Cars, 284. 
 
 Motor Ploughs, 280. 
 
 Mules, 219. 
 
 Muskham Reaper, 280. 
 
 National Poultry Organisa- 
 tion Society, 106, 107, 112, 
 120, 331, 364. 
 
 Nederlandsche Boter Controle, 
 67, 78. 
 
 Netherlands, 11, 67, 72, 78, 80, 
 90, 96, 98, 99, 173, 188, 204, 
 205, 214, 229, 230. 
 
 Newark Horse Club, 228. 
 
 Norway, 12, 226, 230, 231, 244, 
 
 Obstei, 308, 318. 
 Oil-pressing, 179. 
 Ontario, 340. 
 
 Organisation, 189, 193, 237, 354, 
 257, 258, 262, 269, 273, 367. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 m 
 
 Orkneys, io6, io8. 
 
 Osiers, 183. 
 
 Otterbum Motor Car, 286. 
 
 Pagoscope, 276. 
 
 Pasteurising, 94. 
 
 Pasturing, 206, 215, 216. 
 
 Peat, 183. 
 
 Pellervo, 183. 
 
 Pershore Fruit Market, 197. 
 
 Pigs, 149, 150, 151, 220, 227. 
 
 Pig Breeding, 220. 
 
 Pig Insurance, 231, 240. 
 
 Plunkett (Sir Horace), 14, 82, 
 
 363, 369- 
 Poles, 6, 317, 320, 341. 
 Pomerania, 127, 142, 143, 163, 
 
 288, 296, 297. 
 Portugal, 12. 
 ■Potatoes, 59, 174, 175. 
 Poultry, 105-123. 
 Poultry Fattening, 121, 122. 
 Power, 7, 29, 30, 51, 85, 138, 274, 
 
 287. 
 Power Threshing, 278. 
 Power Ploughs, 280. 
 Power Transmission, 290. 
 Principles, 16-37. 
 Produce (Disposal of), 55-198. 
 Protection, 147. 
 Prussian Land Settlement, 309, 
 
 310, 311, 316, 317, 318, 322. 
 PubUcity, 23. 
 Pulp, 187, 197, 325. 
 
 Quotations, 133, 134, 140. 
 Quality,63, 66, 71, 116, 151, 153, 
 210. 
 
 Raiffeisen (F. W.), 8, 39, 129, 
 
 366. 
 Raiffeisen Societies, 8, 45, 129, 
 
 130, 142, 144, 202, 278, 281. 
 Raiffeisen Union, 34, 49, 52, 336, 
 
 344, 353- 
 Railways, 184, 193, 285. 
 Reapers kept in Common, 280. 
 Reichsverband, 28, 34, 36, 39, 
 
 49, 124, 126, 132, 133, 335, 
 
 338, 345- 
 Retail Trade, 164. 
 
 Rings, 30, 70, 146, 157. 
 
 Risk, 19, 22, 30, 44, 62, 69, 256. 
 
 Roscrea Bacon Factory, 153, 
 
 155, 156. 
 Rosin, 182. 
 
 Roumania, II, 306, 307, 318, 319. 
 Russia, 12, 106. 
 Riitti Dairy School, 74. 
 
 Sale by Weight, 117. 
 Savings Banks, 10, 292, 317. 
 Scalford Dairy, 98. 
 Schweizer, 75. 
 Scotland, 96, 108, no, 216. 
 Scottish Co-operative Wholesale 
 
 Society, 47, 48, 49, 50, 145. 
 Security, 252, 254, 258, 259, 260, 
 
 311, 366. 
 Seedcom, 130, 131. 
 Separated Milk, 102. 
 Shares, 257, 298, 299, 319, 320. 
 Silkworms, 180, 
 Size of Societies, 26, 27, 28, 84, 
 
 89, 135, 155, 230, 239, 262. 
 Skelldale Dairy, 80. 
 Slaughtering, 65, 163, 164. 
 Small Farmers Benefited, 4, 21, 
 
 41, 130, 137, 138, 147, 171, 
 
 17s, 176, 178, 180, 185, 201, 
 
 209, 227, 228, 258, 259, 260, 
 
 279, 281, 282, 294. 
 Small Holdings, 305, 314, 315, 
 
 325, 327, 371- 
 Small Holdings Commission, 305. 
 Small Holdings Societies, 316, 
 
 318, 319, 320, 327, 328. 
 Socialist Influence, 11, 309. 
 Southern Counties Agricultural 
 
 Trading Society, 158, 168. 
 Spring Frosts, 249, 276. 
 Standardising, 35, 109, 136, 189, 
 
 219. 
 Starch, 174, 175. 
 State Help, 199, 210, 213, 214, 
 
 219, 223, 224,-231, 235, 240, 
 
 241, 242, 265, 297, 308, 347- 
 
 360. 
 State Interference, i, 9, 24, 45, 
 
 78, 127, 132, 201, 222, 236, 
 
 337. 347-360. 
 
378 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Steam Ploughing, 280, 282, 283, 
 284. 
 
 Stotfold Small Holdings Society, 
 279. 
 
 Sugar Beet, 172, 173, 325. 
 
 Sugar-Beet Distillery, 173. 
 
 Suitable Settlers, 317, 318, 319. 
 
 Supply, 38-54, 323. 
 
 Supply Societies, 29, 38. 
 
 Sussex Association for the Im- 
 provement of Agriculture,332. 
 
 Sweden, 12, tj, 87, 96, 164, 183, 
 226, 230, 233, 244, 334. 
 
 Switzerland, 2, 10, 20, 46, 52, 
 58,70,72,74,95,99, 148, 175, 
 19s, 199, 202, 211, 218, 219, 
 220, 229, 232, 236, 237, 238, 
 
 244, 344- 
 Syndicat Central, 146. 
 
 Technical Departments, 293. 
 Telephones, 286. 
 Teme Valley Motor Car, 285. 
 Tenancy, 321. 
 Testing, 92, 95, 98- 
 Threshing, 278, 280. 
 Tobacco, 176, 177, 325. 
 Tralee Bacon Factory, 154. 
 Tregaron Agricultural Society, 
 
 221. 
 Transformation of Produce, 58, 
 
 59- 
 Tuberculous Milk, 81. 
 
 Uniformity, 151, 177, 189, 190. 
 
 Union, 21, 24, 37, 44, 120, 139, 
 143, 152, 154, 157, 160, 190, 
 209, 211, 213, 240, 241, 324. 
 
 Unione Militare, 65. 
 
 United Irish-women, 363. 
 
 United Kingdom, 123, 225. 
 
 United States, 2, 52, 115, 125, 
 155, 176, 180, 181, 188, 189, 
 190, 214, 275, 286, 340. 
 
 Usury, 129, 307. 
 
 Vegetables, 60, 184, 185, 188, 
 
 192, 197, 325- 
 Vicar's Farm Society, 22 1 . 
 Viehleihkassen, 201. 
 Viehmarktkasse (Vienna), 164. 
 Vignerons Libres de Maraussan, 
 
 65, 178. 
 
 Wanderkurse, 342. 
 Watagas, 13, 
 Wateringues, 274, 275. 
 Water Supply, 275. 
 Wattenwiel (Herr von), 205, 206, 
 
 210, 215. 
 Wayland SmaU Holdings, 327. 
 Weighing Machines, 278. 
 Wholesale Dealing, 34, 36, 44, 
 
 47, 143- 
 Wickham Market Industrial 
 
 Co-operative Society, 112. 
 Wilts. Farmers, 33. 
 Winchcombe Cattle Market 
 
 Society, 160, 169. 
 Winchester Co-operative 
 
 Auction Market, 158, 160. 
 Wine (Sale of), 64, 65, 178. 
 Wine Societies, 31, 63. 
 Winter Dairjdug, 83, 84. 
 Winter Supply, 119. 
 Wirthschaftliche Frauenschule, 
 
 342. 
 Women, 339, 346. 
 Wool, 181, 182. 
 Work, Machinery and Power, 
 
 274-302, 323. 
 Worthing and District Market 
 
 Growers, 197. 
 Wiirttemberg, 216, 332. 
 
 Yield of Milk, 203, 204, 210. 
 
 Zadrougas, 13. 
 
 Zentralstelle fur Viehverkauf, 
 
 148, 158, 159, 161, 165, 166, 
 
 167, 168. 
 Ziemianki, 341. 
 Zuivelvereenigingen, 78, 88. 
 
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