Cooperation 137 



for pecuniary profit or it may be formed as a cooperative 

 enterprise. When organized by a group of dairymen, it 

 may take either of these forms, though most of the farm- 

 ers' creameries in America have been formed as stock 

 corporations with certain cooperative features included. 

 The country creameries are usually owned by an individual 

 creamery man or by the farmers in the community in 

 which it is located. There are also many large creamery 

 corporations formed to purchase cream and butter-fat 

 from the farmers and to distribute the product to the 

 wholesale and retail trade, the profits from the finished 

 butter going to the creamery company rather than to the 

 producer. 



Organization of a Creamery 



In organizing a farmers' creamery, the first step is to 

 determine the number of cows within a few miles of the 

 proposed plant from which the cream can be obtained. 

 When one-half of the amount needed is pledged by the 

 farmers, the creamery is then to be made a legal corpora- 

 tion. Shares of stock should be sold to as many farmers 

 as possible at $25, more or less, per share, and, to provide 

 against the creamery falling into a few hands, no one 

 farmer should be allowed to own more than a limited num- 

 ber of shares. The creamery may be organized as a 

 non-stock corporation along the lines already described for 

 corporations of this character. This method is the usual 

 one in the Danish and French creameries, the original 

 funds needed to build a factory being borrowed from a 

 bank and paid off in installments. The Danish system 

 of financing is described by Fay * as follows : 



1 " Cooperation at Home and Abroad," pp. 168-169. 



