CO-OPEKATIVE DAIKY SOCIETIES 39 



took care to deliver the milk in good condition, and to see that 

 their neighbours did the same. As all farmers in the district 

 joined, the van collecting the milk had to stop at every farm 

 and house, which meant a minimum cost of cartage. There 

 were no difficulties about the skim milk, which was returned to 

 the farmers. The technical improvements soon brought it 

 about that butter made in co-operative dairies from milk col- 

 lected from many farms was satisfactory not only as to quantity, 

 that is, that the same amount of butter was made from 100 lbs. 

 of milk as in the estate dairies, but also as to quahty, the '* dairy 

 butter" equalling and soon even surpassing the celebrated 

 " estate batter." 



It was the Danish peasants themselves who found a practical 

 way of developing the dairy industry, and they found this by 

 applying the co-operative principles introduced by the Kochdale 

 weavers. They received no support and only lukewarm 

 sympathy from large farmers and estate owners, until later on 

 when the co-operative dairies were doing so well that even 

 ownergof estates with two to three hundred cows found it to their 

 advantage to close their private dairies and to join co-operative 

 dairies. Sympathy and support by word and pen and practical 

 advice were given by the consulting dairy expert to theK.A.S.D., 

 now professor, B. Boggild.^ Neither the State nor any other' 

 public body took any notice of them, nor did even such a ques- 

 tion as the technical education of the many hundred men re- 

 quired to manage or work on the staff of these very complicated 

 dairies, with their powerful and dangerous cream separators, 

 their pasteurisers, pure culture propagators and other appHances, 

 trouble any one outside the peasant farmer class. But from 

 this class men came forward to supply the needs as they were 

 felt, and foremost among these men was Niels Pedersen (1851 - 

 1911), son of a small Jutland peasant. He had passed through 

 the usual training of practical work on the farm, winter courses 

 at People's High Schools, agricultural school, and even a full 

 course at the Eoyal xVgricultural College, Copenhagen. After- 

 wards he purchased a small farm of 40 acres near Askov High 

 School, opened there an agricultural school, Ladelund, and 



* B. Boggild, " Andelsmcjolkcrier," 1887 ; also by same : " Mcelkeribruget 

 i Danmark," 1890, and later editions. 



