CONTROL SOCIETIES IVd 



both easy to carry about and practical in working. At about 

 the same time Professor Babcock, of Madison, Wisconsin, and 

 the Swedish engineer Lindstrom, described similar inventions. 

 All three apparatus were tested during the winter 1893-94 

 at the Laboratory for Agricultural Research in Copenhagen,! 

 all were found efficient and good, Gerber's giving the most 

 correct results and being at the same time the easiest to work. 

 " Gerberising " milk could be done cheaply on the farm, 

 deahng with many samples in a short time, the apparatus 

 could be bought at a moderate cost and carried about from 

 farm to farm. This gave the opportunity for the Co-operative 

 Control Societies. 



Niels Pedersen, Ladelund, had already since 1890 been 

 testing the quantity and quality of the milk from each cow in 

 his herd, and every year he published detailed reports ; he 

 agitated among farmers in the district to induce them to do 

 the same, and with considerable success. But it was found 

 that farmers could not in the long run find time to carry on 

 the work and the necessary book-keeping. If the work was 

 to prosper it had to be done on co-operative lines. A meeting 

 was called for the 24th January, 1895, at which 13 farmers 

 with 300 cows formed " The Control Society of Vejen and 

 District," with Niels Pedersen as a member of the committee. 

 A " control assistant " was appointed who, for a very modest 

 salary, undertook to do the testing and keep the records, visiting 

 the members' farms in rotation with the Gerber apparatus. 

 The members were jointly and severally responsible for the 

 liabihties of the Society ; they paid a certain small entrance 

 fee for each of their cows that they wanted to be tested, and 

 the annual expenses were divided among them according to 

 the number of the cows they had entered, or on a similar co- 

 operative basis. They undertook to give the assistant free 

 access to weigh and test the milk, to weigh the fodder consumed, 

 and to give him the necessary information required for the 

 book-keeping This latter was fairly simple during the first 

 years, but gradually became more comphcated as more and 

 more questions were taken up in connection with the economics 

 of dairy farming and the breeding of good cattle, based on a 



^ Thirty-first Report from " Forsogslaboratoriet," 1895. 



I 



