NEW OFFICIAL STATISTICS OF THE AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS 1 7 



Cattle Foods frs. 12,866,512 



Manure . . . 

 Seeds . . . 

 Machine ty . . 

 Other Articles 



6,516757 



375,755 

 200,074 



423.733 



At the end of 1909, there were 1,123 purchase societies and departments, 

 with 70,218 members, doing a business amounting to 17,944,382 frs. 

 § 3. Societies for sale of milk, manufacture and sale 

 of butter and cheevse. 



The number of co-operative dairies in 1911 was 675, of which 559 were 

 working and had 57,474 members (an average of 103 per society), and pos- 

 sessed 196,338 cows (an average of 3.4 per member). 



The dairies working were distributed as follows: lyimbourg 139, 

 lyuxembourg 123, Brabant 68, Kast Flanders 63, Antwerp 62, lyiege 44, 

 West Flanders 32, Hainaut 19, Namur 9. In the course of the year, the 

 sales were as follows : 



Butter frs. 39,213,801 



Milk » 280,996 



Cheese » 33>953 



Other Products » 313,302 



Total frs. 39,842,052 



that is to say, on an average 71,625 frs. per society and 693 frs. per member. 



§ 4. IvAND CREDIT SOCIETIES. 



The land credit institutions of Belgium are of two kinds, the Agri- 

 cultural counting houses and the Raiffeisen rural hanks. 



1. Agricultural Counting Houses. — The law of April 15th., 1884 author- 

 izes the General vSaviugs Bank to invest part of its funds in loans to farmers 

 through these cotmting houses : they are councils, composed of not less than 

 three persons of competence in agricultural matters united in a society of 

 collective title and undertake to ascertain the degree of credit the borrowers 

 may be given and their solvency, as well as to supervise the current busi- 

 ness and prosecute insolvent debtors: they are jointly and severally U- 

 able and receive from the institute of credit lending a del credere commiss- 

 ion corresponding with the guarantee given. The counting houses are 

 therefore intermediaries between the Bank and the individual borrowers. 



At present there are 16 of them. The loans in course effected by 

 theii means were on December 31st., 1911, 4,537, for an amount of 

 14,915,311 frs. In 1911, 796 were granted for 3,034,670 frs. The amount in 

 the majority of cases (627) is between 1,000 and 10,000 frs. 



2. Rural Banks. — The second class of Belgian land credit institutions 

 is that of the Raiffeisen rural banks conforming with the law of May i8th., 



