INFORMATION RELATING TO CO-OPERATION AND ASSOCIATION 1 3 



taken advantage of their weakness, their foolishness or their inexperience, 

 and tending to repudiate payment of the sums thus demanded ; 



" 4th. To make contracts for collective insurance against fire, hail, 

 mortality among live stock, etc. ; 



" 5th To form co-operative societies for buying, selling, preserving 

 and converting agricultural products emanating from the farms of members 

 exclusively : 



" 6th. To bu>' and keep agricultural machinery to be let to members of 

 the society for small sums ". 



All native cultivators not protected by foreigners paying the land tax 

 belong compulsorily to the society, and centimes additional to this tax 

 occur among assets, as well as various receipts and advances from the 

 State. 



ITALY. 



THE CO-OPERATIVE AND MUTU.\Iy AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES IN ITALV ON 

 31 DECEMBER 1916. — Catalogue of these societies on 31 December 1916 published by 

 the Confedcrazionc Generate delle Cooperative e Mutue Agrarie Italiane, Rome, 191 7. 



From a catalogue of co-operative and mutual agricultural societies, 

 recenth' published by the General Confederation of Italian Co-operative and 

 ^Mutual Agricultural Societies, it appears that on 31 December 1916 there were 

 in Italy 6,406 agricultural co-operative societies as against 5,289 on 31 De- 

 cember 1913, the date of the same confederation's last catalogue — and 

 1,347 agricultural mutual societies — as against 1,069 ^^ the end of 1913. 

 These 6,406 co-operative societies are distributed as follows : 



Co-operative rural funds 2,725 



Agricultural consortia and purchasing so- 

 cieties 1.567 



Social dairies 1,150 



Various co-operative societies 735 



Co-operative enological and \'iticultural so- 

 cieties 215 



Co-operative factories of superphosphates . 14 



Total . . . 6,406 



The greatest number of co-operative societies are in the provinces ol 

 Turin (336), Udine (342), Alexandria (302), Rome (248), Belluno {193). 

 Brescia (188), Parma (180), and Cuneo (179). 



