94 CO-OPEEATION IN DANISH AGRICULTURE 



often took the first prizes. That is to say, in other words, 

 that the improvement of the cattle, instead of being restricted 

 to the large herds belonging to the best individual breeders, 

 was fully shared in by even the smaller farmers, and that even 

 their cows were served in many instances by the best bulls 

 available. This has resulted in a remarkable uniformity 

 throughout the country in the cattle of the two native breeds. 

 For the country itself this improvement in almost the whole 

 stock was of the utmost value, and was one of the factors 

 helping to produce the remarkable increase in the butter 

 production mentioned in a previous chapter. 



The State had undoubtedly materially helped to bring this 

 about, and it reaped the fruit of its wisely planned help to 

 self-help, the educational effect of which was very much 

 enhanced by allowing the Associations of Cattle Breeding 

 Societies and the Provincial Federations of Agricultural 

 Societies to administer the State grants. In 1912 a change 

 was introduced by the legislature. The Minister of Agriculture, 

 in the course of the debate in the Eigsdag on a Bill for Improv- 

 ing thQ Breeding of Domestic Animals, stated in so many words 

 that "the best Law on this subject is that one which gradually 

 makes itself superfluous." Accepting this reasoning, though 

 naturally with some opposition on the part of the representatives 

 of the farmers, the Rigsdag resolved materially to reduce the 

 help of the State, and at the same time to impose more stringent 

 conditions for sharing in the grant. The grant per bull was 

 reduced by one-half, and a new element was introduced. 

 " Control Societies," to be described later, for examining 

 individual cows with regard to their yield of milk in quantity 

 and quality (that is, its contents of butter fat), had in the mean- 

 while been formed. The new Law provided that for bull 

 clubs with half their number of approved cows entered in a 

 " control society " the grant for the bull could be increased 

 by 225., while if three-quarters of the number of cows were 

 entered the grant could be increased by 50s. per bull. The 

 object of this provision was to bring about co-operation between 

 bull clubs and control societies. Before we describe this 

 co-operation, which was, to a large extent, successfully attained, 

 a few statistics from official inquiries will be in place. 



