200 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



great work of our agricultural colleges and experiment 

 stations. They have performed a marvellous service to 

 mankind. And yet the Co-operative Movement among 

 the fruit and grain growers of the West, and the cotton 

 planters of the South, has done as much to make Agricul- 

 ture a science and a profession as all other forces combined." 

 And Mr. Charles A. Lyman, Chairman of the Legislative 

 Committee of the Wisconsin Society of Equity, very sugges- 

 tively remarks : "I believe that it will repay an agricul- 

 tural college many fold to understand that farmers will 

 be quicker to apply scientific methods to their industry 

 after they have learnt the value of science in the conduct of 

 their own business activities, such as in co-operative 

 societies, creameries and cheese factories, and in associa- 

 tions organised for the purchase of their agricultural require- 

 ments." On this ground alone, although denounced, lock, 

 stock and barrel, by old fogies like Mr. Kidner, late Presi- 

 dent of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, Co-operation 

 deserves to be practised in our national Agriculture. 



However, there is a further object still to serve, a wider 

 horizon to look to. " True Co-operation," so with great 

 truth observes Mr. Clarence Henry, one of the leaders of 

 the national agricultural movement in the United States, 

 " does not consist of combinations, built on greed or pre- 

 judice, to destroy any cogs in our business world, but in 

 organisation based on mutual understanding, to further 

 community interests." That still rather points the way 

 only, instead if indicating the full aim. Mr. Roosevelt, 

 as President of the United States, grasped the meaning 

 of the further aim when, at the instance of Sir Horace 

 Plunkett, he appointed his Country Life Commission, to 

 inquire into the most advisable methods for improving 

 country life on the social as well as on the economic and 

 technical sides. The Commission included elements too 

 widely differing among themselves to enable it to arrive 

 at any very clear conclusion. The recommendations made 

 by it represent a compromise, which in such matters is 

 never satisfactory, and may be taken really to meet the 

 wishes of neither side. It should be borne in mind that 



