VILLAGE LIFE: ORGANIZATION 183 



postmaster, one a quarryman, two are blacksmiths, and 

 two do carting and odd jobs for various employers. 

 It is, in fact, assumed that, where general farming is 

 followed, holdings of this size cannot be made to 

 support a man and his family in the district in ques- 

 tion unless they are supplemented by work in other 

 directions. 



We come now to the question of organization ; and 

 here I would venture to repeat what Mr. Fairfax- 

 Cholmeley has been good enough to tell me in regard 

 to his own experiences : 



When I first came to live at Brandsby, in 1890, it would have 

 been difficult to find a more conservative and unprogressive place 

 throughout England, or one where the circumstances were more 

 uncongenial to the establishment of a co-operative agricultural 

 society. The very fact of the comfortable circumstances of the 

 leading farmers was in itself a hindrance, for this only made them 

 the less ready to put themselves out by forsaking their old ways for 

 new, where others less well to do, and perhaps pinched by necessity, 

 might have been ready to clutch at any straw to save themselves 

 from ruin. Their long establishment in a remote parish also 

 tended to make them take unkindly to new ideas, and the size of 

 their farming operations was sufficiently large to make the 

 immediate advantages of combined purchase of comparatively 

 small value, unless it meant something more than being able to 

 buy a truckload at a time. Moreover, the competition of com- 

 mercial agents in the local market at Easingwold was keen. The 

 beginning of a new movement like agricultural co-operation in such 

 circumstances was, therefore, particularly difficult, and one might 

 fairly conclude that success here would warrant our expecting 

 success in any other place. 



The first stepping-stone to the conspicuous success 

 that did finally reward persistent effort was the 

 establishment of a co-operative dairy by a body then 

 called 'The Brandsby Dairy Association, Limited.' 

 This was in the early nineties. At that time the only 

 other co-operative dairy in the country was the Skelldale 

 Dairy, near Ripon, and the idea of co-operation for 

 such purposes was practically unknown to the farmers 

 of the country. The Brandsby district, too, was not 



