THIRTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART XII 613 



"The fundamental idea of the Raffeisen banks, which are the general 

 model for co-operative credit in agriculture, is that the farmers in a small 

 area should combine to find credit for one another. They provide loans 

 for approved reproductive purposes; and the banks rely for their success 

 on the knowledge which their members and managers have of local cir- 

 cumstances and of the character of the applicants, as well as on the fact 

 that each member, being implicated with every transaction, has an inter- 

 est in seeing that loans are only made for suitable purposes and to re- 

 liable persons. It is an interesting corroboration of the soundness of this 

 principle that these banks do not in practice have any bad debts, poth 

 in Germany and in Italy the banks are closely associated with purchasing 

 societies, so that the borrower has the advantage not only of credit on 

 reasonable terms, but also of co-operative purchase and of the advice and 

 guidance of those by whom the loan is sanctioned. 



"Regarding the secondary results brought about by co-operative action, 

 it may be said that they are several in number and decidedly far reach- 

 ing in their effects. Increased crops and increased prices spell, of course, 

 larger incomes and larger profits, the influence of which stimulates and 

 revives rural life on its social no less than on its economic side. Public 

 schools, country churches, other public institutions, and general rural 

 life are apparently made better, all of which tends to check the drift of 

 rural population to towns and cities." 



TILE DRAINAGE— ITS EFFECT ON CROPS. 



S. F. SPARKS, WALKER, IOWA. 



(Read at the Twenty-Seventh Annual Session of the Northwest Division 

 of the Linn County Farmers' Institute, December 19, 1912.) 



When our forefathers landed upon the shores of this country whether 

 at Salem, at Jamestown or St. Augustine, they found this country peopled 

 with a hardy race of mankind, splendid as types of human beings, 

 unsurpassed the world over, who in their savagery had worked out a 

 form of semi-civilization. They had a form of government. They tilled 

 the soil. They conserved their food supplies. They built tov/ns and 

 villages. Let us read what Col. Roosevelt says about the Creeks: 



"Bears had been exceedingly abundant at one time, so much so as to 

 become one of the main props of the Creek larder, furnishing flesh, fat, 

 and especially oil for cooking and other purposes; and so valued were 

 they that the Indians hit upon the novel plan of preserving them, 

 exactly as Europeans preserve deer and pheasants. Each town put 

 aside a great tract of land which was known as 'The beloved bear ground,' 

 where the persimmons, haws, chestnuts, muscadines and fox grapes 

 abounded and let the bears dwell there unmolested, except at certain 

 seasons, when they were killed in large numbers. However cattle were 

 found to be more profitable than bears and the 'beloved bear grounds' 

 were by degrees changed into stock ranges. 



"Many of the chiefs owned droves of horses and long horned cattle, 

 sometimes as many as 500 head— besides hogs and poultry. Their fields 



