1 84 RURAL DENMARK 



paid very little for their old-fashioned produce, especi- 

 ally for butter, which was of bad quality. At this 

 date the merchants in the towns misused them {i.e. 

 the farmers), but when the co-operative pig factories, 

 stores, and dairies arose, these paid higher prices and 

 more money was brought home. As soon as it was 

 found that they (the farmers) received more cash from 

 these sources, naturally there grew up an angry feel- 

 ing between the land and the town." (I suppose this 

 means that the towns grew indignant because the 

 land-dwellers were doing better, and this by buying 

 their goods through co-operative stores instead of at 

 the shops with which they used to deal.) 



" But now," continues my correspondent, " comes 

 the danger of the system, which I will ask you to lay 

 before your countrymen. In the old days the farmers 

 lived upon what the soil could produce. Now, how- 

 ever" {i.e. under the co-operative regime) " they all 

 desire to be No. i in the matter of production of quan- 

 tities of milk, pigs, eggs, &c. The farmer who formerly 

 kept ten cows raised his stock to twenty, many of 

 them to the point of keeping one cow on each tonde- 

 land (that is i^ acre) of his farm. This could only be 

 done by his buying ' craft-fodder ' (that is cake and 

 the like). So we went from real farming into a state 

 of unprofitable farming industry, and a system of 

 feeding that brings losses. Not one out of a hundred 

 farmers keeps books and accounts to guide him and 

 prove that no animal can profitably digest more than 

 a certain quantity of fodder. If too much is given to 

 them the food will be undigested and wasted, and 

 result in absolute loss. This is the pitiful result of 

 co-operation. Our animals have been eating many 

 of the millions that now clog the farmers in the 



