THE CO-OPERATIVE COLONY 57 



collective enterprise under the guidance of an expert 

 adviser who would instruct the occupiers as to the crops 

 they could grow most advantageously and the methods 

 of cultivation to adopt. The society would own the 

 necessary machinery and horse labour, and the adviser 

 would organize the rota on which it circulated ; plough- 

 ing, cultivating, and all operations involving power or 

 machinery would thus be carried out by the society at 

 cost, leaving to the occupier the processes involving 

 manual labour only. The occupier would purchase all 

 his necessaries — manures, seeds, tools, etc., through the 

 central depot at wholesale rates plus the expenses of 

 management ; he would bring his produce to the depot, 

 where it would be graded, properly packed, and sold in 

 bulk. The depot for a fruit and vegetable producing 

 colony would thus involve a packing and grading station 

 and an installation for pulping, canning, drying, and 

 other processes for dealing with gluts and utilizing in- 

 ferior produce. For a colony of stock farmers the depot 

 might take the form of a cheese factory or creamery, 

 an egg-collecting station, etc. ; it would also own and 

 control the necessary sires of high quality. On a larger 

 scale the slaughter of cattle and the sale of meat, the 

 manufacture of bacon, etc., might be undertaken co- 

 operatively ; but in the early stages at any rate it 

 would seem desirable not to undertake these very 

 special commercial enterprises, which are not in essence 

 the business of the producer. Until the co-operative 

 society is very strong both in its organization and its 

 finance it should confine its operations to securing a 

 standardized production and sale on wholesale terms. 

 The business of co-operation is not to get rid of the 

 distributors, dependent manufacturers or middlemen, 



