COMBINATION AMONG FARMERS. 109 



the committee ballot for the farms where the samples shall 

 be taken for analysis, and the secretary, accompanied by 

 a representative of the manufacturer, goes round and 

 takes samples. All manures are bought on stated values 

 per unit, and for excess up to 10s. per ton above the agreed 

 standard. Deficiency below standard is charged for on 

 the same basis, with 25 per cent, in addition as a penalty. 



In England the cash basis is, I believe, invariably 

 adopted, while in France, as we have seen, credit is given. 

 No doubt credit must be paid for in some way, but if 

 membership of the association is considered to be a moral 

 guarantee against bad debts — as is stated to be the case 

 in France — no doubt the additional charge for, say, two 

 or three months' credit would be very small. 



The development of agricultural co-operation has been 

 even more remarkable in Germany and Denmark than 

 in France. In Germany there are no less than 7,762 

 registered agricultural co-operative associations, com- 

 prising 5,382 agricultural credit societies ; 894 societies 

 for the purchase of fertilisers, seeds, and implements ; 

 1,262 co-operative dairies, and 224 other co-operative 

 societies. A full account of the development and organisa- 

 tion of the co-operative dairies in various parts of Germany 

 appears in the Report on Dairy Farming in Denmark, 

 Germany, and Sweden (C. 7,019), published by the Board 

 of Agriculture in 1892. They may be divided into three 

 classes, viz., dairies which manufacture butter and skim- 

 milk cheeses, and thus utilise the skim-milk; dairies in 

 which only the cream is used, the skim-milk and butter- 

 milk being returned to the members ; and dairy stores in 

 which fresh milk is sold on behalf of the members, and only 

 the surplus converted into butter and cheese. Dairies of 

 the second class are the most popular, as the skim-milk 

 and butter-milk can generally be more profitably used for 

 rearing calves and fattening pigs than by its conversion 

 into cheese. Taking the accounts for 1892 of 288 of these 

 co-operative dairy societies, it appears that the average 



