CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES FOR PURCHASE 

 AND SALE 



The development of agriculture after the middle of last century- 

 increased the need among farmers of many articles for house 

 and home, for field and stable, which they had formerly done 

 without or produced themselves. Implements, machinery, 

 seed, artificial manures, feeding-stuffs, and many other things 

 gradually became necessaries. First came improved and 

 lighter implements for hand-working, then reaping machines, 

 improved ploughs, double ploughs, improved harrows and rollers, 

 cream separators and other machinery for field, farm and 

 dairy. Better grass seed was wanted, and grass seed and 

 clover seed were bought from other countries. As late as in 

 the sixties bones were exported from Denmark to be manu- 

 factured into manure; but ten years later the import into 

 Denmark of chemical manures and raw materials for their 

 manufacture increased rapidly. In the year 1867-68 more 

 than 2000 tons of oilcakes w^ere exported from Danish oil- 

 mills, and it was not unheard-of for oil cakes to be used as 

 fuel. Ten years later there was a considerable import of oil- 

 cakes and other feeding-stuffs, and this import increased with 

 the increase of stock and better feeding. 



This development affected other classes than farmers ; it 

 made new demands on merchants. During the years of corn- 

 growing for export merchants had acquired a knowledge of 

 corn and the corn trade ; but they were now asked to supply 

 feeding-stuffs, machinery, manures, and seed, and their know- 

 ledge of these goods was often deficient^ with the result that 

 they were defrauded when they bought from abroad. Want 

 of knowledge or honesty or both, on the part of the merchants, 

 combined with want of knowledge on the part of the farmers, 



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