l6 INFORMATION RELATING TO CO-OPERATION AMD ASSOCIATION 



harvest in Russia The large development of co-operative credit in Poltava, 

 where there are 251 co-operative credit societies, seventy-seven savings and 

 credit funds, ninezemotvos' funds for small credit, four co-operative unions 

 for small credit, six rural banks etc, in all 617 institutions of smaU credit, 

 has allowed operations to be on a very large scale. The operations of the 

 unions of Romny, Konotop, Niejin, etc., are already organized. The union 

 of Romny has itself made advances on 100,000 puds of tobacco or nearly 

 10 per cent, of the total harvest of the district. Operations of this kind 

 were begun in the districts of lycchvitzkij, Prilukskij, Romensky, Konotop- 

 ski and Nejenskij and in the southern districts of the province of Tchernigov. 



A section of the co-operative societies have made an agreement with the 

 consumer.:' co-operative societies of Moscow : they furnish their tobacco to 

 the factory- of the union which has been bought by the co-operative society 

 of vStaioe Seslavine But this factor^' cannot wholly absorb what consti- 

 tutes a notable part of the total product ; and the decision of the tobacco 

 manufacturers not to buy tobacco from the co-operative societies obliges 

 these to seek another method of getting rid of their produce. Therefore 

 the representatives of the co-operative credit societies of the d istrict of 

 Romn}'- decided at their meeting that the^^ would themselves organize a 

 factory. 



At the same time co-operation for the sale of tobacco was faced with 

 another verj^ important question, that of the sale of tobacco abroad, for 

 in 1916 the representatives of <"he administration of the State monopoly in 

 France began to make large piirchases in the province of Tchernigov. At 

 the meeting of representatives of the union of Ronmy, at which represen- 

 tatives of the Popular Bank of Moscow were also present, the organization 

 for exportation abroad, was discussed, that employed in exporting flax being 

 taken as a type of that which should from 1917 onwards be applied to the 

 tobacco trade. 



UNITED STATES. 



THE C0-0PERATI\'T: PRODUCTION AND SALE OF RAISINS IN CALIFORNIA. — C. 

 A.[ Murdocli, [Secretary,' of the California Associated Raisin Company, in The Grain 

 Growers' Guide, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 25 July 1917. 



California is the home of the rai.sin industry in America and the grea- 

 test raisin producing countiy in the world. The Mediterranean countries 

 are the other great areas fox the production of raisins and Spain was first 

 among them for centuries. Raisin grapes were introduced into California 

 in 1851 but the industry'' had its real beginning there only in 1876. For the 

 first six years progress was slow. In 1879 the crop first exceeded 1,000,000 

 pounds. In 1892 it equalled that of Spain, and was reported by the Uni- 

 ted States Department of Agriculture to be reducing the importation of 

 foreign raisins by 20 per cent. In 1895 it amounted to more than 9,000,000 

 pounds ; in the next year it jumped to 14,000,000 pounds ; and it continued 



