492 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



conditions. If it is differences in climatic conditions which 

 stand in our way, in comparison with neighbouring countries, 

 it is because we often enough " bore with the wrong tool," 

 laying ourselves out for producing what is not suitable to our 

 climate. We persist in giving, in Latin phrase, " chaff to the 

 dog, and bones to the donkey." 



The second objection, which credits Germans with a gift 

 of organisation that we do not possess, has even less founda- 

 tion. And I should like to ask the preliminary question : 

 Supposing the Germans possess this monopoly, how comes 

 it that the Danes are even better organised than the Ger- 

 mans ? And how about the Belgians and the Dutch, who 

 likewise have a greatly superior organisation to what we 

 can boast of ? Germany has indeed shown that it can 

 organise, more particularly in the matter of agricultural 

 Co-operation. But in doing this she has in fact ploughed 

 with our heifer. For it was we, quite undoubtedly, who 

 first set up samples of that Co-operation which, with her 

 usual skill in adapting and improving, Germany has applied 

 to that interest which, in respect of Education, Organisation 

 and General Development, we have for a long time back made 

 our Cinderella. Indeed, all her organisation is more or less 

 copied from ours — organisation in trade, in commerce, in 

 banking, in that high- famed " Social Insurance " — which 

 last-named is a direct outcome from our Friendly Societies' 

 practices, just as is her magnificent Co-operative Credit. It 

 was from us that Schulze Delitzsch avowedly learnt Friendly 

 Society organisation, which he developed into Co-operative 

 Credit. And just like his co-patriarch of such Credit, 

 Raiffeisen, it was with Friendly Society organisation that he 

 began his highly fruitful work. Germany could not have 

 organised an army of five million men, as we have done, nor 

 improvised a huge fighting force, overpoweringly equipped, 

 in practically no time, like our Allies across the Atlantic. 

 She could not organise any army to act together of its own 

 free will from the motive of pure patriotism, also with all 

 avoidance of harshness, as we see ours doing. We have 

 heard to what cruel and truly barbarous treatment soldiers 

 have been exposed in Germany, in order to make them obey 



