CO-OPERATIVE DAIRIES 167 



example of the success of co-operation is to be 

 found in Denmark. Half ruined by the Napoleonic 

 wars, Denmark was still further crippled by the 

 loss of her two fairest provinces in 1864; the sturdy 

 Danish peasants set to work to repair that loss by 

 reclaiming and bringing under cultivation the moor, 

 marsh and dune land of which the surface of Jutland 

 then so largely consisted. It was in the development 

 of the dairy industry that the Danes first found the 

 means of recovering from the crisis which had over- 

 taken their economic and especially their agricultural 

 conditions. The peasant-farmers of Denmark were in 

 those days extremely poor, and individually they were 

 not able to provide the capital necessary for scientific 

 dairying. Their prosperity dates from the time at 

 which they started co-operative dairies. ' The first 

 co-operative dairy was opened in West Jutland in 

 1882. Others followed, and to such extent has the 

 movement spread that to-day a co-operative dairy is 

 to be found in almost every parish. There are now 

 no fewer than 1,050 of such dairies in Denmark, with 

 148,000 members, owning 750,000 cows out of a 

 total of 1,067,000 milch cows in the country. In 

 1902 Denmark exported, mainly to Great Britain, 

 168,000,000 pounds of butter, 135,000,000 pounds of this 

 total representing home produce, and the remaining 

 33,000,000 pounds butter received from Sweden and 

 Russia. The total value of our (i.e., England's) imports 

 of butter from Denmark in 1902 was ;^9, 302,000, as 

 compared with ;^8, 950,000 in 1901 and ^^8, 029,000 in 

 1900. The amount invested in the erection and equip- 

 ment of dairies is over ;^i, 500,000. The practice usually 

 adopted is for about 150 farmers in a particular district 

 to raise, say, ;^i,2oo by subscribing ^8 (Rs. 120) each, 

 this sum being sufficient to provide a dairy which will 

 deal with the milk of 850 cows. . . . Next to the co- 

 operative creameries, and now, indeed, rivalling them 

 in importance, come the Danish co-operative bacon- 



