246 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



made collectively 106,929 loans to the amount of $282,007,781, that 

 is, on an average $2,617 per loan. The loans granted by the Federal 

 Loan Banks in the year stood at $134,554,920. The Joint Stock 

 Loan Banks had, up to the date named, made in all 5,815 loans of 

 the collective value of $54,126,357, that is, on an average $9,308 

 per loan. Evidently, therefore, the larger borrowing goes to the 

 Joint Stock Banks. Such loaning was reported to have not only 

 met with much appreciation on the part of farmers, but to have — 

 with the aid of the educational activity of directors and officers 

 already referred to — to have exercised a decidedly stimulating 

 action upon the practice of agriculture. Thus, to quote one instance, 

 in North Dakota, dairy production is reported to have increased by 

 100 per cent. Borrowing has accountably been most active in the 

 southern and western States, where of course money was most 

 wanted, and where facilities for borrowing such had previously been 

 fewest. 



What the future of this business is likely to be it is not quite easy 

 to conjecture. As a means to the extension of co-operative practices, 

 which are generally admitted to be much wanted in United States 

 agriculture, one would wish to see the " associations " prospering, 

 multiplying and extending their business, imperfect as their " co- 

 operation " still is. For there is really not much genuine " co-opera- 

 tion " in them, nor anything to evoke co-operative spirit. As Mr. 

 Morman lamented at Chicago, there is not overmuch of that 

 commodity to be met with altogether in the United States, where 

 everybody is for himself, and only few discern in common action for 

 common good a substantial advantage for each one participating. 

 The ephemeral combination called for in joint action for the specific 

 purpose of obtaining one loan does not promise to produce much 

 lasting co-operation. Evidently " business " is gravitating — as 

 " business " naturally would — to the joint stock companies, whose 

 share in the business done in the year 1919 — 1920 is expected 

 to sum up to 75 per cent, of the aggregate amount. In my 

 " Co-operative Credit for the United States," which was written 

 before the Farm Loan Act was passed, I ventured to argue that — 

 for the present at any rate— capitalist enterprise had in the United 

 States much the better chance of doing business in mortgage credit, 

 whereas, for the provision of working funds by means of personal 

 credit, co-operation would, if found practicable, best meet the wants 

 of the case. Congress has tried to combine the two services in one. 

 My argument and prediction appear thereby to be confirmed by 

 fact. Credit for working purposes is admittedly urgently wanted in 



