X PEEFACE 



artisan and peasant classes, found no favour among Danish 

 peasants, who were little versed in financial matters and perhaps 

 also felt the need of credit less. 



It is characteristic of Danish agricultural co-operation 

 during the latter half of last century that it aimed almost 

 exclusively at improving agriculture or agricultural industry. 



The peasants formed societies for the purpose of enabling 

 them to adopt means for the improvement of their live-stock 

 which they saw practised by large land-owners, but which they 

 themselves individually could not afford to employ. They 

 also combined, in other societies, to improve their business 

 by the manufacture of butter and bacon on an industrial 

 scale, and introduced quite original modes of co-operation, 

 such as the " control " societies. Later on they took up the 

 question of improving farm seed, both by producing better 

 strains of different kinds of plants, chiefly corn and roots, and 

 by buying these improved seeds through special co-operative 

 purchase societies. All these and sundry other co-operative 

 societies, each with its own single object, were formed by the 

 peasants for the purpose of improving their farming, in the 

 widest sense of the word ; and the success achieved was such 

 that gradually farmers in a large way and even wealthy land- 

 owners found it to their advantage to join these peasants* 

 societies. 



The local societies form the backbone of the Danish co- 

 operative movement. Local societies of the same kind some- 

 times combine to form Associations, but the independence of 

 the local societies remains unimpaired. The farmers in a 

 village form their supply store, their co-operative dairy, their 

 *' control " society, bull club, horse-breeding or egg collecting 

 society, all being co-operative and all being independent of 

 one another, although the members and even the committee 

 members are often the same individuals. The co-operative 

 societies of the same kind in the villages in a district have in 

 many cases formed an Association, and similar Associations 

 would be formed in other districts, for instance. Associations 

 of Co-operative Dairy Societies or Associations of Bull Clubs. 

 These district associations, in some instances, again combine 

 within larger districts or within the three provinces, Sealand, 



