COOPERATIVES: EARLY PHASES 69 



the problems of rural Wisconsin, and two years later Professor B. H. 

 Hibbard of the same institution gave the first extensive course in coopera- 

 tion and marketing. That same year Professor George F. Warren of Cor- 

 nell published a notable book entitled Farm Management. These three 

 schools Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Cornell were well in the lead on 

 these subjects. Most agricultural colleges, as late as 1914, had not even 

 started to investigate them, or else had made only "a gingerly beginning, 

 in abstract, general ways." 27 



Since cooperatives developed chiefly in regions specializing in the pro- 

 duction of a particular commodity, it was hardly surprising that the first 

 successful cooperatives to be found in any number were among the dairy 

 producers. By the year 1900 no less than 549 dairy associations had been 

 organized in the United States, most of them during the last decade of the 

 century. 28 By 1915 the number of dairy cooperatives exceeded those of any 

 other commodity. Minnesota then had more dairy associations than any 

 other state; Wisconsin ranked second, and Iowa third; but by 1925 Minne- 

 sota and Wisconsin had changed places. In 1915 the Minnesota coopera- 

 tives had the most members, with those in Wisconsin and Iowa next in 

 line; but by 1925, New York had jumped into the lead, with Minnesota, 

 Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania following in the order mentioned. In 1915 

 Wisconsin ranked first in the amount of the cooperative business trans- 

 acted, trailed by Minnesota, Iowa, and Michigan. But by 1925, Minnesota 

 had moved into first place, New York into second, Wisconsin into third, 

 and California into fourth. Most of the shifts in position that occurred 

 during this decade can be accounted for by the relative growth of the 

 cooperative marketing of fluid milk. 29 



The first organizations of dairy producers were effected in order to 

 manufacture cheese and butter on a cooperative basis. As early as 1810, 

 the dairy producers of Connecticut had made unsuccessful efforts to or- 

 ganize; and it appears on fairly good authority that it was a group of 

 farmers in Rock Lake, Jefferson County, Wisconsin, who in 1841 first 

 banded together to form a "cheese ring" to manufacture their cheese on 



27. Survey of the University of Wisconsin, pp. 945, 947-49. 



28. F.F.B., Statistics of Farmers' Selling and Buying Associations, p. 4. 



29. Elsworth, Agricultural Cooperative Associations, pp. 36-37. 



