126 CO-OPEKATION IN DANISH AGEICULTUEE 



order to defeat this attempt, and at the same time to secure 

 greater guarantee of getting just the kind of goods required, 

 farmers joined in the way in which they had previously suc- 

 ceeded, and in which they have on several later occasions 

 successfully counteracted the formation of trusts. Indeed, it 

 has become more and more clear that in co-operation is to be 

 found the only effective and legally unexceptionable means 

 against the modern trusts. 



In the middle of the nineties, merchants in Jutland formed 

 the Jutland Corn and Feeding-stufts Company at Aarhus. 

 As a counter-move a large co-operative society for the whole 

 of Jutland for the purchase of feeding-stuffs was suggested by 

 a farmer named P. Bjerre, a member of the Rigsdag. The 

 idea was taken up, many meetings were held, and a committee 

 was appointed with Anders Nielsen, Svejstrup Ostergaard, as 

 chairman. Notwithstanding many warnings in the local 

 papers, pointing out that such an undertaking was much more 

 difficult than making butter or bacon by co-operative societies, 

 that it required experienced merchants to buy and sell, and that 

 a very much larger working capital was required in such a 

 trading concern than in local producing societies, the committee 

 forged ahead, and in 1898 the " Jutland Co-operative Society 

 for the Purchase of Feeding-stuffs " was formed, with its seat 

 at Aarhus, with Anders Nielsen as chairman, and an energetic 

 young merchant, Chr. Nielsen, as managing director. It 

 started with 68 local branches or societies, and had for the first 

 year a turn-over of £61,000, which by the year 1915-16 had 

 increased to £3,716,000. The society had in 1916, 830 local 

 branches i with about 40,000 individual members, and branch 

 offices in seven other towns in Jutland. Co-operative dairy 

 societies, or groups of farmers among the members of such 

 societies, or special societies of farmers formed for the purpose 

 are accepted as members of the J.C.S.P.F., provided that they 

 bind themselves for a period of five years to purchase their 

 feeding-stuffs through the society. Each such member signs 

 a guarantee in proportion to the number of cows owned by the 

 farmers. This guarantee amounts to about £28 for each 260 

 cows. The local societies are represented at the General 

 1 In 1917 increased to 848. 



