1292 New Yokk State Agricultural Society 



history' of modern credit, than the wonderful development of 

 cooperative agricultural credit in Europe during the last two gen- 

 erations, on the one hand, and the utter failure, on the other 

 hand, of such credit to develop in the United States. Contrast 

 these two propositions. In 1909 there were in Gennany nearly 

 13,000 rural cooperative banks affiliated with one federation alone 

 (that of Darmstadt) with a membership of 1,1G3,000 persons, 

 and a total business, incoming and outgoing, of over a thousand 

 million dollars. Those institutions had deposits of over $375,- 

 000,000 and outstanding loans to farmers of about $400,000,000. 

 Moreover these figures do not cover anything like all the coopera- 

 tive agricultural credit of Gei-many alone. 



In the same year there was not a single cooperative agricultural 

 bank in the United States and this was true despite the substantial 

 development of other forms of cooperation among American farm- 

 ers, and despite the fact (cited by Mr. George K. Holmes, States- 

 man of the Department of Agricubure at Washington) that 

 " whole counties had been populated in the Northwest by 

 European agriculturists who came from neighborhoods where 

 they were familiar with agricultural credit." 



My subject to-night is in the form of a question '" Can 

 European Cooperative Credit Methods be Apjdied to American 

 Farming ?" 



What I have to say will be limited chiefly to short-time agri- 

 cultural credit as distinguished from long-time mortgage or land 

 credit. The former is used primarily to obtain funds for effi- 

 ciently operating the farm ; the latter for buying the farm itself. 



Assuming that you are familiar with wdiat these European 

 methods are, the first question to ask is : Why have not European 

 methods already been adopted in this country ? The German co- 

 operative agricultural banks have been in successful operation for 

 two generations. Why have they not been brought to the United 

 States, as they have to most European countries, and been adapted 

 to American conditions ? This question is much easier to ask than 

 to answer. The fact that thev have not been brought here 

 naturally creates the suspicion that there may be some insuper- 

 able obstacles to their development in this coimtry. No such in- 

 superable obstacles in my judgment exist, and I believe that the 



