192 AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION 



interest has been paid on share capital, is generally 

 returned to the supplier in the form of a bonus in proportion 

 to the value of the business done. 



Where the debatable point arises is on the question as to 

 whether co-operative egg-collecting should be taken up, 

 preferably, by societies devoting themselves exclusively 

 thereto, or by societies which regard it as only an addition to 

 their other work or undertakings. There are societies of 

 each type, and the experience already gained suggests that 

 societies which exist for egg-collecting alone can only be run 

 with advantage in districts where eggs are very cheap, and 

 a sufficiently large margin can be secured to cover expenses. 

 Owing to the small capital at their disposal, these societies 

 may be at a great disadvantage in operating against com- 

 petitors possessed of substantial financial resources, or even 

 as against higglers who, when the society offers a slightly 

 higher price in order to ensure the support of members 

 themselves also give a higher price, doing so the more 

 readily because, in addition to dealing with eggs, they trade 

 in butter and other products, smaller gains in one direction 

 being thus made up by the returns in another. Societies 

 depending on egg-collection only have not the same resource, 

 and in 1911 four societies established on this basis were 

 dissolved because they could not make the business pay. 



Where, on the other hand, egg-collecting is adopted as an 

 adjunct to other activities, the society is in a stronger 

 position. It has the same advantage as the aforesaid 

 higglers in not having to depend on only one set of profits. 

 When, for instance, a dairy or a trading society, operating 

 in a district where good prices for eggs are already obtainable, 

 starts an egg-collecting branch, it can, on account of the 

 other business done, afford merely to cover expenses, or even 

 to bear a slight loss on the egg-collection, which it will 

 find an advantage in continuing because the addition of 

 egg-collecting to its other branches may bring in more 

 members, and so lead to more capital being available for the 

 society's purposes in general. Under these conditions co- 

 operative egg-collecting is carried on successfully even by 



