144 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



being formed, whether of Berne, Schwyz or Fribourg cattle, no 

 cows are admitted except herd-book animals to be mated with 

 collectively owned herd-book bulls. In this way the breed is kept 

 pure, and the small man with one or two cows of the herd nets 

 as much for each calf or heifer as does the large breeder. 



The useful practice, quite lately advocated in this country, of 

 periodically testing, not only single cows, but whole herds, for their 

 yield of milk, is altogether in keeping with this Swiss method. It 

 is usual in Switzerland to exhibit, and treat as one, whole families 

 of cows and their offspring, and judge of the sire and dam according 

 to the milking qualities exhibited by the collective group. 



Co-operation may, for the purpose of Rural Reconstruction and the 

 assistance of small folk settling on our neglected plains, be turned to 

 even greater use still. There is the land to be got, on which to settle — 

 whatever be the form of occupation selected, whether as freehold 

 or tenanted property. Co-operation has rendered truly admirable 

 services in assistance given for these purposes, not only materially 

 cheapening the cost — while at the same time benefiting also the 

 vendor or landlord — but in addition making the holdings more 

 profitable and more convenient to hold, by creating clusters of 

 mutually helpful neighbours, and a valuable social nexus, imparting 

 a pleasurable character to life, as establishing entire communities, 

 with all the means of mutual helpfulness and the pleasures of society 

 at their command. Very great good has been accomplished in this 

 way, helping — as under the practice devised, in the first instance by 

 the Italian affittanze collettive, which have been copied, as they 

 deserved to be, in several other countries already — the very poorest 

 to enter into possession or use of land. We have some beginnings 

 of the sort, but as yet only little of value in actual practice — though 

 a fair number of societies have been formed upon paper. A special 

 chapter being here allotted to Land Settlement, this subject will there 

 be more fully discussed. 



Here, I think, may be said to be a catalogue of services renderable 

 and actually rendered by co-operation — supply or distribution, 

 production, sale and other forms— rich, almost overflowing, with 

 promise to our new rural world. There is one service still to be 

 mentioned, in one respect perhaps the most useful of all, that is, 

 the provision of working capital for farming, house-holding or 

 commerce and trade. But that service deserves a chapter to itself. 

 Without co-operation, it may be said the prospect of rural regenera- 

 tion producing a prosperous rural world, with happy rural community 

 life and a good regard for labour, is hopeless, With co-operation, 



