82 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



agreed that the proposal was a good one ; but no one would put his 

 hand in his pocket to take shares — simply because practically all 

 farmers present were on their dealers' books, bound to their dealers 

 by their debts, and accordingly not free agents. That led me to 

 take up the cause of co-operative credit, which elsewhere has helped 

 farmers very readily over the difficulty, but which our Central 

 Chamber of Agriculture has in its wisdom, by unanimous resolution, 

 declared to be " not wanted " among ourselves. 



But the main object of agricultural co-operation undoubtedly is 

 to further production and sale — which latter is but the natural and 

 necessary sequel to production. So manifest is this that, even in 

 extending distributive co-operation, intended to be distributive, in 

 rural areas, such co-operative societies as that of Lincoln — an admi- 

 rable society, doing excellent work, among other things, of this very 

 description — have found it indispensable to include the organisa- 

 tion of sale of agricultural produce within their programme, indeed 

 to make the co-operative sale of produce the bait wherewith to 

 attract to distribution ; and in France, Count Rocquigny, describing 

 in early days the work of French agricultural syndicates, judged 

 the productive object of these practically co-operative organisa- 

 tions so patently predominant that he — not quite correctly — gave 

 his book the title of " Productive Co-operation," although the 

 agricultural syndicates' business at the time still consisted mainly 

 of purchase. 



Production, therefore, must in this connection necessarily stand 

 foremost in importance, being, in Schulze Delitzsch's words, the 

 " roof " of the structure to be raised — purchase being the " founda- 

 tion " and credit the " walls." 



But now, although common action in any case there must be — 

 or how else is the army to be raised to be formed in ranks ? — and 

 although co-operation in the technical sense which it has come to 

 bear is indispensable, and to be studied and adopted wherever 

 possible, " co-operation " in that comparatively narrow sense 

 does not by any means cover all the ground that will have to be 

 reclaimed and cultivated. There is a great work to be done — a 

 work not merely of buying and selling — greater than many of those 

 who clamour for " organisation " are probably aware of, and a 

 work not by any means free from serious difficulties ; and to accom- 

 plish it we shall have to turn to account every instrument which 

 presents itself as being serviceable. 



Above all things, markets have to be systematised. That is, as the 

 American Department of Agriculture has discerned, the most 



