104 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



learning often by costly experience the right method of pro- 

 cedure and how to meet and foil the cunning of their resource- 

 ful competitors. Now "co-operation" is the watchword of the 

 farmer in nearly all parts of the land, and the movement is 

 spreading with ever-increasing velocity. 



Most hopeful and encouraging is the latest phase of this 

 development. Both in merchandise and manufacture the spirit 

 of fellowship and mutual help is taking possession of the masses 

 and spreading with almost startling rapidity. Within a radius 

 of about 150 miles of Minneapolis about 70 co-operative stores 

 have been started in the past three years. A plan of organiza- 

 tion has been devised which promises to be very safe and 

 successful. 



A systematic propaganda is carried on by a central society, 

 under the name of "The Right Relationship League," whose 

 leading spirits are animated by a zeal and enthusiasm akin to 

 that of a religious revival, to which it may not unfittingly be 

 compared. 



The man to whom most of all this movement owes its origin 

 in the West is N. O. Nelson of St. Louis. He is truly a 

 remarkable man, a man whose name cannot fail to find a place 

 in history as one of the greatest and noblest spirits of the age. 

 He calls himself — and justly — one of the "Captains of Indus- 

 try," but one of that rare type that loves man more than money 

 and righteousness more than power. 



In several establishments he now employs about 700 men and 

 has from the beginning been very successful in business. Over 

 20 years ago he made up his mind that the respect and friend- 

 ship of his workers would give him more satisfaction and was 

 more worthy of his ambition than heaping up a vast fortune out 

 of their sweat and toil. In 1884 Mr. Nelson commenced to 

 share his profits with his employees. One day in that year he 

 called them together and announced what he was going to do. 

 Not much attention seemed to be paid to it and little was heard 

 about it till the next time he called them together and distributed 

 $4828 among them in cash. Then they realized that their 

 employer had meant what he said. The next year he dis- 

 tributed $9700. In 1906 it amounted to $177,500 and in 1907 

 about $200,000. There has been no year without profits and 

 the distribution is made among both employees and customers, 



