174 SWITZERLAND 



their own enterprises on their own lines, they 

 resented any invasion by them of the grocery, 

 drapery, and other businesses. The associations 

 thus found themselves boycotted for a time, and 

 they only surmounted their difficulties by im- 

 porting supplies from other countries, or, in the 

 case of fertilizers, by starting mills of their own. 



Then some of the leaders in Switzerland of 

 what, at the outset, was a purely agricultural 

 movement, have, in the ardour of their zeal for 

 the progress of mankind, utilized it unduly as a 

 means of securing " social reform " in general ; 

 while the rank and file, in their turn, have not 

 yet entirely abandoned old prejudices, and pre- 

 fer to maintain sectional distinctions rather than 

 sink their differences, and join together on a 

 common platform for the achievement of a 

 common purpose. 



So it is, therefore, that although other federa- 

 tions (including one at Berne, which is doing 

 good work in the way of grouping purchases) 

 have followed the one established at Winterthur, 

 and although agricultural associations have now 

 been spread more or less throughout the country 

 (in the form, not alone of purchase societies, but 

 also of co-operative dairies, live-stock improve- 

 ment associations, Raiffeisen banks, combina- 

 tions for the collective sale of produce, and so 



