SOCIETIES FOR PURCHASE AND SALE 



Now we come to the third great branch of Danish 

 co-operation, that of the Societies for Purchase and 

 Sale. These societies buy feeding-stuffs and also 

 seeds, chemical manures, &c. from abroad, and sell 

 cattle, eggs, &c. (of those which deal with butter and 

 bacon I have already written). The total amount of 

 feeding-grains, bran, and other " offal," oil and other 

 cake, seeds and artificial manures imported into 

 Denmark in 1909 was of a money value of over 

 128,000,000 kroner (,7,093,333), a very large sum 

 of money for so small a country. 



In addition to what are known as Consumers' 

 Societies, in 1909 fifteen co-operative societies were 

 engaged in this business. Oddly enough in 1900 

 it was undertaken by the same number of societies, 

 while in 1906 that number had increased to twenty, 

 or five more than in 1909. The difference in their 

 turnover between these dates is, however, very re- 

 markable. 



Thus in 1900 this amounted to only a little over 

 5,000,000 kroner (277,083), whereas in 1909, the 

 same number of societies being at work, the turnover 

 came to over 31,000,000 kroner ("1,662,500). This 

 large increase is partly due to the fact that as time 

 went on some of the smaller societies were incorpor- 

 ated with those that were more popular or successful. 



Of the Sale Societies, those for the export of eggs 



are the most important. Thus between 1891 and 



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