138 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



which have been purchased without any of the members ever having 

 had to put his hand into his pocket, just as there are co-operative 

 dairies which have cost no money except what was produced out 

 of their own yield. The credit society has purchased the machinery, 

 and the letting of it has paid for it. Even where there is no credit 

 society, the thing may still be managed cheaply. Here is the case 

 of the Kilmallock society, in Ireland, a typical case. Ireland appears 

 invariably ahead of us in these things. Let me tell the story of the 

 progress made in the secretary's own words: "At the suggestion 

 of Mr. Wibberley an Association was started some eleven years ago. 

 We got our association registered with shares of £1 each. In a very 

 short time the association numbered about eighty members. A 

 small entrance fee was charged, and 2s. Qd. as first call per share was 

 got in. The local bank (the Munster and Leinster) was approached 

 for a loan to purchase machinery. The bank — on the personal 

 security of twenty-five or thirty members — willingly lent the 

 association all the money that was required — in fact there was 

 nearly £500 due at one time. The first machine purchased was a 

 reaper and binder, then a manure distributor, a horse potato sprayer, 

 a corn drill sower, turnip seed sower, a couple of potato diggers 

 and lastly, a 16 h.p. ' Mogul ' oil tractor and threshing machine. 

 Certain hire was charged for the use of all these, which went to pay 

 off the bank overdraft. What I have just said will give you some 

 idea as to how the money was raised to buy these machines with 

 having paid only 2s. 6d. each member. I would like to add for 

 your information that our first plan of working some of the machines 

 was not satisfactory. For instance — the binders— instead of one 

 there should be twenty to meet requirements of the association. 

 Ten or twenty members may have their corn ripe the same day or 

 week. It could not cut for them all. This caused trouble and 

 disappointment. To remedy this state of things the binder was 

 sold. The members formed themselves into local groups of four or 

 five, and each group purchased a binder for itself. This system was 

 adopted with some of the other machines also." 



The great fact remains that with the judiciously enlisted help of 

 co-operation and an easy credit, at the cost of only half a crown out 

 of each pocket, the eighty or a hundred members obtained in course 

 of time — and that not a very long one — an entire arsenal of machinery 

 and implements for labour-saving use and dispatch on their farms, 

 and the community is much the better for their venture. That 

 case does not by any means stand alone. Very rightly has the Irish 

 Agricultural Organisation Society taken up the cause, and in the 



