IVFORMATION RELATINC. TO CO-OPERATION AND ASSOCIATION 



tobacco is j^rown is 65,500 deciatines (i) and the harvest surpasses 7,500,000 

 puds (2) and cjives means of subsistence to 316,310 families. The average 

 area of a tobacco plantation is from 0.15 to 0.3 deciatines. The applica- 

 tion of the co-ojjerative ])rinciple therefore favours very small proprietors 

 who are particidarly liable to exploitation by middlemen. 



The first attempt to organize the sale of tobacco co-operatively was 

 made in 1911 in the province of Tchernigov and was followed a year later 

 by the formation of the co-operative societies of Yalta (Crimea) and Bessara- 

 bia. Tn the province of Tchernigov the co-operative credit societies of 

 Chrestchatinskoe and Rogstchevskoe began to make advances out of funds 

 guaranteed by the deposit of tobacco, pa^'ing growers 60 per cent, of the aver- 

 age market price of the tobacco. Analogous operations were conducted in 

 I«.)I2 in the district of Yalta by the small credit fimd of the Zemstvo and 

 the co-operative credit societies of Bogat3-r and Korbekly, which applied 

 a method slightly different from that followed by the co-operative societies 

 of Tchernigov for the}- left the tobacco with the growers but obliged them 

 to insure it. oo that it was v/ithdrawn from them onlj' at the moment of sale. 

 In the same year similar advances began to be made in the co-operative 

 credit society of Rievsk in Bessarabia, which is today a true model for this 

 branch of co-operation. It made advances guaranteed by the deposit 

 of tobacco, and also superintended tobacco growing, emplojdng as instruct- 

 ors specialists who taught members perfected methods of cultivation and 

 introduced the best tobacco among them. In this respect the society approx- 

 imated to the procedure of German co-operative societies. An interesting 

 experiment was made in the same year in the province of Tambor in which the 

 first co-operative tobacco factor^' was organized as the result of an agree- 

 ment between the co-operative credit and the co-operative consumers' 

 society of Staroe Seslavine. The consumers' society withdrew the tobacco 

 deposited with the credit society' and passed it into its factor^-. The fac- 

 tory was able to secure a strong position in the market by entering into 

 solid commercial relations with 180 co-operative consumers' societies. 



These isolated experiments, important as they sometimes were, could 

 not seriously influence the market and sometimes quite failed to reach their 

 object for the resistance of manufacturers and combined middlemen could 

 not always be overcome. 



The war however gave a vigorous impulse to this movement for it 

 necessitated the formation of strong regional and district organisms. 



In Siberia the co-operative credit society of Malyscevsko-Angarskoe 

 succeeded in combining a number of co-operative societies in Pabaikal and 

 Irkoutsk and thus creating a strong union of co-operative societies for sell- 

 ing tobacco. 



In European Russia unions were formed in .1916 in the province., of Tcher- 

 nigov and Poltava where quite 3,800 villages are emplo^'^ed on tobacco grow- 

 ing and annually produce 3,379,000 puds or 45 per cent, of the total year's 



(1) I dedatine = 2.689 acres 



(2) I pud = 40 lbs. 



