134 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



class legislation and State aid have belittled the purposes of the 

 movement and retarded its progress. Co-operative banking is 

 of no use to farmers when it is made benevolent, or when its 

 functions are restricted exclusively to saving and lending. It 

 is not practiced successfully among farmers except where it is 

 used in a very practical manner as a financial instrument for 

 organization and for strengthening the member's purchasing and 

 selling power. As a result of the narrow scope given to co-oper- 

 ative banking by the so-called "credit union" laws, unfortu- 

 nately enacted in some States and by the majority of superficial 

 investigators who have studied the subject, American farmers 

 have not taken kindly to the idea, and rural co-operation is no 

 farther advanced than it was five years ago when the move- 

 ment first began. 



Altruism and State aid are not the only burdens that are 

 impeding the movement for land credit; it has been almost 

 swamped by projects foisted upon it with no consideration of 

 their probable effect, except upon the class of persons whom 

 they are intended specially to benefit. Nearly all these proj- 

 ects relate exclusively to agriculture. They propose eithei» 

 government intervention or the adoption of some new and 

 untried scheme, with little regard to the fundamentals of the 

 problem or to the consequences on other industries. This is 

 true of the bills in Congress and also of the laws enacted in the 

 States, while the latter have the additional objection that they 

 differ one from the other and prevent a standardization of the 

 farm-mortgage business. 



One of the manifest causes of the present financial troubles of 

 agriculture is a deficiency of good general laws on both land 

 credit and co-operation. The lack of such laws is felt by many 

 persons besides farmers, and it would seem that some legislator 

 might have suggested that the first step should be to remedy 

 defects, supply omissions and enact general laws based on 

 correct principles for the good of all. This is the natural 

 course of legislation on new subjects, but no one appears to 

 have thought of it. The idea of a general reformation has been 

 condemned without a trial, and the solution of the problem has 

 been made unnecessarily diflScult by treating farmers and 

 owners of farm lands as if their needs conflicted with the 



