Seventy-Third Annual Report 1297 



at Washington, nor any of our state banking departments, so far 

 as 1 know, have made a earefiil inquiry of tlie banks under their 

 supervision as to tlie amount, character and terms of their agri- 

 cultural loans. Such investigations are imperatively needed, as a 

 first step in the movement for improving agricultural credit facili- 

 ties in this country. We should know more about present agri- 

 cultural credit needs and the facilities for meeting them, before 

 we undertake any wholesale reforms. 



The statements just made as to the great differences in the 

 needs for agricultural credit in different parts of the countr^^ 

 suggests one of the great merits of the cooperative credit plan ; 

 i. e., its adaptability to widely divergent local conditions. In 

 Europe there are cooperative credit institutions like the German 

 Landschaf ten to provide mortgage credit for the landowner, others 

 like the Schultze-Delitzsch banks to provide short-time credit for 

 the merchant, professional man and laborer in the cities and 

 towns, as well as for farmers ; others like the Raitfeisen banks and 

 the Wollemborg banks of Italy to provide short-time credit pri- 

 marily or exclusively for the farmer. There are cooperative banks 

 with large capitals and cooperative banks with practically no 

 capital ; banks with unlimited liability of shareholders, banks with 

 double liability and still others in which the shareholders' lial)ility 

 does not extend beyond his share of the capital and accumulated 

 surplus; there are cooperative banks with handsome buildings and 

 a largo and well-paid administrative force discharging in regular 

 order a constant round of business, and there are others where 

 the administrative work is practically all gratuitous — banks like 

 the typical Raiffeisen bank described by Fay as follows " It is a 

 small single room, probably at the back of a farm building, opened 

 twice a week and presided over by a single occupant — the 

 accountant. Business is apt to be found desultory; a small child 

 brings in a few savings ; an hour afterwards a palsied old man, 

 signing by a cross, draws out a couple of pounds, and so on to the 

 end of the day, the really important business being done at the 

 weekly meeting of directors." 



If cooperative credit is to have a vigorous growth in America 

 it will need to be given a fairly free hand to adapt itself to local 

 conditions. There are many sections of the United States in 



