AGRICULTURAL CREDIT IN THE UNITED STATES 957 



European Methods and Experience 



In many European countries interesting and instructive results 

 have been attained in the development of agricultural credit. It 

 is from France and Germany that the United States has most to 

 learn in this connection. Within the limits of the present article 

 it is possible to give only the briefest outline of the agricultural- 

 credit systems of these two countries. 



In Germany the greater part of the personal credit of the 

 owners of small and medium-sized farms is furnished by the 

 Raiffeisen cooperative banks. Previous to the formation of these 

 banks, of which the first was founded about the middle of the 

 nineteenth century, there were no organized credit institutions to 

 which such farmers could apply. Hence they were dependent 

 on private lenders and were preyed on by usurers. Their com- 

 mon need and their common racial and religious sentiment facili- 

 tated the establishment of the Raiffeisen organization, which was 

 based on the parish community, with the teacher, the priest and 

 the public official as leaders. Out of these elements there grew 

 a credit movement which is the admiration of the world and 

 which has brought untold blessings to the German peasants. 

 Not only has it afforded them ample and cheap credit but, through 

 its educative influence, it has brought about their social regenera- 

 tion. But the advocates of a similar system for this country 

 overlook the fact that the conditions which made the German 

 movement successful are almost entirely wanting in the United 

 States. American farmers are not poverty-stricken ; they are not 

 victims of the usurer, and they are not without organized credit 

 facilities ; in neither race nor religion have they any bond of 

 union ; nor is the teacher, the priest or the official a leader in 

 their community life. Furthermore, the struggle which has been 

 required to create and maintain these institutions in Germany 

 and to keep them true to their original purpose is too little 

 understood in this country. 



In France most of the farmers are men of small affairs and 

 without experience in the use of bank credit, and they were prac- 

 tically without organized personal credit until the last quarter of 



