i6o THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



United States so impressed is the Federal Department of 

 Agriculture at Washington with the great value of Co-opera- 

 tive Organisation to farmers, large and small alike, that it 

 has instituted a special " Section of Markets and Rural 

 Organisation," the Speciahst of which, Mr. C. W. Thompson, 

 writes in an official Report of 1915 : 



" In the farming processes, from the first stage to the last, 

 from the selection of the seed to the marketing of the product, 

 as well as in the promotion of social well-being in farm life, 

 Organisation has proved its value, and, as this fact is being 

 realised, more and more fully organised methods are being 

 employed in increasing measure." 



And everywhere, without exception, Co-operative Organi- 

 sation has proved Agriculture's best friend. ''? 



It is curiou^ — and interesting — to note how everywhere, 

 in sore trouble, agriculturists have, as if by instinct, turned 

 to Co-operation when their country suffered. In Denmark 

 it was the crushing defeat of 1864 — when, as the pun ran 

 after our desertion of the Turkish fleet at Sinope, we left 

 our friends " sine ope " — which first suggested Agricultural 

 Co-operation. And Agricultural Co-operation has proved an 

 efficient solace. In Finland it was the same cause^ — political 

 oppression and deprivation of liberty under the Plehwes 

 and Bobrinskys, which gave Agricultural Co-operation the 

 start. And the effect was as brilliant and even more rapid. 

 In Russia it was — just as in India^ — the bloodsucking of the 

 usurer (nicknamed " benefactor ") and usurious trader 

 which drove peasants to Agricultural Co-operation. In 

 Germany it was, in the early 'eighties, after agricultural 

 disappointment caused by the failure of Prince Bismarck's 

 Protection of 1879 to perform what had been promised, 

 that farmers resorted to Co-operation. In similar manner 

 in France it was the protective tariff which stamped rural 

 co-operative bakeries out of the ground as Pompey did 

 legions. In the United States it was depression and the 

 cruel exactions of " Trusts " and " Rings " which led to 

 the formation of the great Farmers' Educational and Co- 

 operative Union, a body now with more than two million 

 members and some thousands of associations, which has 



