1236 Xew Youk State Agricultural Society 



your mortgago bank can advance the money to build and equip 

 them on the combined credil of their owners for a term of say 

 twenty years wirh anmiity payments to come out of the profits of 

 the business so that the de])t woukl l)e amortized at the end of the 

 mortgage period. The annual cost would Ije about $7.50 a 

 year on every $100 advanced. Then when the shipping season 

 came along, and money was needed to move the crops, your credit 

 bank would have sufficient security in the new wealth of the asso- 

 ciation to make the needed advances. If the individual farmer 

 wishes to store his fruit or other produce until the glut of the 

 market subsides, his warehouse receipt would be sufficient collateral 

 for a temporary loan. This is no fancied theory. There is 

 iiothino; mvsterious or romantic about it. It is merely an outline 

 of a system of business in full operation to-day in otl.er lines of 

 business in every civilized country in the world and the farm 

 application of this cooperative business system is already in opera- 

 tion in the ])rincipal countries of Europe. While, as we have seen, 

 the principles of cooperation credits arc simple enough, it is not 

 strange that people who have received tluir information fnuu the 

 mass of confused published matter on the subject in this country, 

 should entertain some erroneous impressions. This confusion has 

 been encouraged by the fact that in some of the European countries 

 cooperative banks have been to some extent subsidized, and other- 

 wise favored by government assistance. This has led to the erro- 

 neous conclusion that cooperative credits meant that anyone can 

 join a cooperative society, and can get money out of it or from the 

 government wilhout regard to his nuiterial or moral worth. I do 

 not need to tell this assemblage that cooperative credits do jk -th- 

 ing of the kind. It is true that England is financing farm mort- 

 gages in ii'elaiid in order to revive former agricultural resources 

 of that landlord-ridden country. The French Eevolut inn nn.l 

 foreign wars lei'l the agricidtural peasantry in France in such a 

 deploralde condition that the government thought it advisable to 

 oro-anize the ('n'dit I'dncier to finance farm mortgages and sid)- 

 sidized it for the purj)ose. The Freiudi government has also 

 sul)sidized regional baid<s and charged them with the dtity of re- 

 discounting cooperative bank bills; and in two special cases Den- 

 mark has furnished financial assistance to associations whose 



