116 KURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



superior business organization, partly on facilities for 

 occupation and amusement ; and if the balance is to be 

 redressed the country must be improved in all three 

 ways. There must be better farming, better business, 

 and better living. These three are equally necessary, 

 but better business must come first. For farmers, the 

 way to secure better business is co-operation, and what 

 co-operation means is the chief thing that the American 

 farmer has to learn."* Such business co-operation the 

 farmers of Denmark have secured, and in securing it 

 have become strong. By means of it the farming of 

 Denmark is so specialized and so organized that it 

 resembles more the great modern industries than old- 

 time farming. Yet the land is still owned and worked 

 by small-acreage farmers. In no other country is farm 

 population holding its own as in Denmark. 



The first requisite for such co-operation in Canada 

 is the securing of legislation authorizing the formation 

 of co-operative societies, defining their objects, powers 

 and responsibilities, and providing safeguards for their 

 operation and for central co-ordinating societies. There 

 is an essential difference between the organization 

 requisite for joint stock companies and co-operative 

 societies, a difference indicated by the very names of 

 the two classes of organizations. The one is a combina- 

 tion of capital, the other an association of persons. In 

 the control of the company the holding of shares con- 

 stitutes the voting power ; in the control of the society 

 membership does so. 



Sir Horace Plunkett says: "The object of rural 

 associations is not to declare a dividend, but to improve 



* Sir Horace Plunkett, " The Rural Life Problem in the 

 United States," p. 84. 



