82 The Bulletin. 



The Danish cooperative method of producing and selling are also most 

 interesting. The cooperative dairy movement embraces 1,000 societies with 

 200,000 members; and it delivered last year over five billion pounds of milk, 

 which produced 2o0.000.000 pounds of butter, worth $00,000,000. (Denmark 

 is not much larger than ten or fifteen of our counties.) Whal a revolution it 

 would make if even fifty counties in North Carolina could make a million 

 dollars worth of butter a year! 



The increase of wealth and manufacturing in our Southern cities and towns 

 insures markets at the highest price here at home for milk products of fine 

 quality. 



Similar cooperative societies market the eggs, bacon, and lambs of the 

 Danish farmer. There are two poultry associations — one with 4,000 and the 

 other with 0.000 members. Each has some forty centers of experimentation 

 and distribution of ]>uro-bred stock, and by improved methods of marketing 

 eggs bring the Danish farmer .$10,000,000 per year. Other market products 

 are handled by the cooperative creameries of Denmark in a similar manner. 

 They no longer sell their live hogs, but kill, cure, and manuf.acture every scrap 

 at home, with the result that pigs that formerly brought $7,400,000. now bring 

 $2.j.000.000. The Danes believe in manufacturing the farm products to the 

 highest degree before they let them leave the farm or cooperative factory. 

 lie sells the finished jirodnct and not the raw material, for ho believes that 

 the nation that sends away the raw material to .-i more skilled people to finisli 

 is ruined. Is there not a lesson for the North Carolina farmer to learn from 

 the Danes? Will not the Southern farmers wake up to the importance of 

 cooperation and strive to secure the benefits of the same, beginning in a small 

 v\-ay and working out i)laMs that are best suited to our needs? There should 

 be some legislation by our lawmakers so that coo])erative societies could be 

 easily organized. 



The question of rural credits is receiving a great deal of attention at the 

 present time, and both of the great political parties have declared in favor of 

 same. I deem it wise to devote a few minutes to the consideration of this sub- 

 ject, and quote from an address delivered l)y former (Jovernor Iledrick of 

 Ohio, who has devoted nuich time and study to this question. I would also 

 call your attention to the action of the Southern Commercial Congress in 

 requesting each State to send two delegates to Germany to study this ques- 

 tion at first hand. I trust that the North Carolina Department of Agriculture 

 will take tliis forward step and send two of her foremost farmers to study tlie 

 question of rural credits and proclaim the facts to the farmers of North 

 Carolina. 



"The permanent improvement of farming methods, whereby the yield i>er 

 aci-e may be substantially increased, demands two things: Farmers must be 

 made to ajipreciate the possibilities of scientific methods and taught how to 

 use such methods, and they must be supplied with funds to make the needed 

 changes and improvements. "We cannot hope for an increase in the produc- 

 tion of foodstuffs in this country equal to the increase in consumption iniless 

 the deserving tiller of the soil can be supplied with the funds he nee<ls. at low 

 rates and for long periods. It is as necessary for the farmer to have cheaji 

 money as it is for the railroad builder or the manufacturer. The availability 

 of cheap money for loans on farm land will make it possible for many farm 

 tenants to buy farms for themselves. It will encourage many others to pur- 

 chase land and take up farming as a means of livelihood. At the present 

 time 37 per cent of all farms of the country are cultivated by tenants, an 

 increase of IG per cent since 1900. The cultivation of the soil by the owners is 

 essential to the highest agricultural development. Tenants will not use the 

 same care and skill that owners do. The young man of to-day who scans the 

 field of human endeavor will see. in the cultivation of the soil with the aid of 

 modern science, what was not there thirty or forty years ago. Profit, ])lenty. 

 and peace will be his portion if he makes agriculture his profession and is 

 equipped as well as he must be to make a success in other vocations. Farm 

 life to-day is immeasurably more attractive than it was twenty or even ten 

 years ago. Improved roads, the telephone, rural free delivery, and other 

 conveniences to a large extent have done away with the depressing isolation of 

 country life, and it is now possible for the farmer and his family to take part 



