PREFACE 



By MR. HARALD FABER 



The wonderful system of co-operation in Danish agriculture, 

 in the highly developed form in which we find it now, embraces 

 almost every branch of agriculture and agricultural industry, 

 and has its ramifications in practically every parish in Den- 

 mark. It has built up an organisation so complete that all 

 the threads converge to one point from which the joint action 

 of the whole system is in a certain measure controlled. The 

 co-operative movement in Danish agriculture was not started 

 by a circle of philanthropists or even by the landlords for the 

 purpose of benefiting the practical farmers. It has grown up 

 locally and gradually among the peasants in the villages, and 

 takes its root in the feeling of sohdarity and a sense of the 

 benefits of mutual help among the peasants which can be 

 traced back to remote centuries. The date of the foundation 

 of the agricultural co-operative movement in Denmark cannot, 

 therefore, be given as it can in some countries where it owes 

 its inception to the action of a single man or of a committee. 

 Attempts to introduce co-operation in Denmark, fostered by 

 philanthropists, were made in the middle of last century, but 

 they aimed at helping the industrial workers in the 'towns and 

 achieved but very little success. But the peasants, with their 

 experience of mutual help within the village communities, 

 eagerly took up the idea of co-operative supply stores on the 

 Rochdale system, which the town workers were unable to 

 maintain when these stores were introduced for their benefit 

 in 1866. Another form of co-operation was introduced in 

 1850 from Germany, viz. : the Credit Associations, which 

 for some time were supported almost exclusively by the large 

 landowners. Co-operative Credit Societies, which in several 

 other countries were the first form of co-operation among the 



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