i84 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



happened in Germany, where Governments have wastefully 

 opened the pubHc purse to afford deceptive " help " to 

 " co-operative " granaries, which soon collapsed — " there 

 is a smaller percentage of failures among these companies 

 than there is in any other business organisation or pro- 

 fession." And the financial gain is not all. " Everybody," 

 so reports Mr. W. M. Stickney, who is a student of the 

 matter, " is becoming a student of Co-operation. We 

 think this spirit is of far more benefit than the twenty- 

 five or fifty million dollars (in the Middle West)." The 

 Elevator movement has also exercised a distinct effect upon 

 the social side. 



" During the summer and early fall," so writes Mr. Stickney, 

 " hundreds of farmers' elevator picnics are held. ... It is 

 these thousands of gatherings every year, together with the 

 business experience acquired in conducting the affairs of a cor- 

 poration, that are making the farmer a leader in the progress 

 of the West. In fact, so progressive has he become, that he 

 now owns his own trade paper. The American Co-operative 

 Journal, which is the official organ of the farmers' movement in 

 all the grain-belt states." 



That also means, what Mr. Stickney does not expressly 

 mention, that the Elevator movement, both in the United 

 States f and in Canada, has actively exercised the same 

 educational propagating power that is peculiar to Co-opera- 

 tion of all sorts. It has not belied its co-operative character. 

 The Elevator Societies do a great deal for Education, both 

 in respect of their own peculiar interest and with regard 

 to Agriculture generally. And it may be worth mentioning 

 that they have not in every instance confined their action 

 to their own special business, that is, grain selling. Many 

 of them have tacked on supply of various articles with 

 distinct benefit to their members. 



It may be granted that the call for grain stores is not 

 quite equally pressing in this country as it has been in 

 the United States and in Germany, where, with greater 

 variety ranging among local prices, there is freer play for 

 dealers' tricks Grain stores of the old pharaohnic type 



