VII. RURAL ORGANIZATION AND 

 MARKETING 



AGRICULTURAL SYNDICATES IN FRANCE 



By Henry W. Wolff 



(From the Quarterly Journal of Economics^ Vol. VIII, p. 98, October, 1893) 



IT MAY be a fact of some interest for Americans that the 

 Syndicats Agricoles, which are rightly attracting the attention 

 of agricultural authorities in various parts of the world and 

 promise entirely to revolutionize French rural economy, owe 

 their origin, in the first instance, to an American idea. Count 

 Rocquigny, in the interesting account which he has published of 

 the agricultural associations with which his name has become 

 creditably associated, candidly admits that it was the " Farmers' 

 Alliances " of the United States which first suggested the present 

 form of French agricultural combination to its authors. As it 

 happens, the offspring bids fair to prove of wider and more 

 enduring benefit than the parent. Its past record has been one 

 of truly astounding successes. It has spread as if by magic. In 

 the brief space of barely a decade it has covered all France with 

 a network of organizations ministering to the needs of agriculture 

 in a surprising variety of ways and flourishing almost everywhere. 

 There is not a department now without its Syndicats, linked 

 together in departmental or, beyond that, in regional " groups," 

 or not, as the spirit of union or of local independence happens 

 to have prompted members, generally doing good work. In 

 M. Gatellier's words, the syndicates have "democratized" the 

 use of feeding stuffs, artificial manures, and improved agricul- 

 tural implements, increasing the consumption of manures alone 



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