112 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



$1,000,000 worth of butter a week to England before 

 the war. 



The success of co-operation in dairying induced 

 the fanners to build co-operative slaughter-houses. 

 To-day there are nearly 40 of these farmer-owned 

 abattoirs, which slaughter 1,500,000 hogs annually 

 and have a membership of 101,0 )0. 'i'iio raising 

 of hogs was greatly stimulated by the co-operative 

 movement, and the business has grown from 23,400 

 hogs to over 1,500,000. Even the egg business, 

 which in many ways is the most interesting of all, 

 has been organized along co-operative lines. Al- 

 most every farmer is a member of an egg-collecting 

 society. The farmer does not take his eggs to the 

 near-by store and sell them for whatever he can 

 get. He sells them himself. The country is divided 

 into circles or districts. The egg association collects 

 the eggs from the individual farmers and takes them 

 to the near-by warehouses. Each egg is stamped 

 with the name of the producer and the date of its 

 delivery, so that any complaint may be traced. 

 The eggs are then sent to Copenhagen, where they 

 are packed and classified for export. In 1896 the 

 egg-export business amounted to about $2,000,000. 

 By 1908 it had grown to $6,600,000. Danish eggs 

 have a reputation of their own. They are always 

 fresh and they bring high prices. 



The peasant has pushed his co-operative activities 

 into other fields. Some years ago the middlemen 



