PREFACE 



THIS volume is intended as a discussion of the principles 

 that underlie the organization and management of the Amer- 

 ican cooperative associations in agriculture. The application 

 of the methods of cooperation to the production, handling, 

 distribution, and sale of farm crops and to other agricultural 

 activities, is commanding the attention of farmers, legis- 

 lators, and economic investigators throughout the United 

 States and Canada. 



The American cooperative movement, even in the oldest 

 cooperative organizations, is in the formative stage. The 

 principles of cooperation are not generally understood, and 

 few persons appreciate the difference between a cooperative 

 organization formed for the benefit of its members, and a 

 corporation formed for pecuniary profit. The so-called 

 cooperative associations in the United States and Canada 

 have usually been formed as corporations for profit, and do 

 not differ in principle from the ordinary stock corporations, 

 although an effort has often bee a made by the organizers to 

 conduct them along cooperative lines. 



The development of the agricultural cooperation move- 

 ment needs to be preceded in most of the states by legisla- 

 tion that will permit the formation of non-profit cooperative 

 associations or the formation of profit corporations that can 

 be operated legally for the benefit of the members. 



The writer has discussed some of the legal questions in- 

 volved, the financing and management of such organizations 



