128 CO-OPEEATJON IN DANISH AGRICULTUKE 



1901, the same year as the above four. " The Danish Co- 

 operative Dairy Societies' Joint Purchase Society and Engineer- 

 ing Works " in Copenhagen and Kolding suppHes machinery, 

 implements, and other requisites to co-operative dairies. Owners 

 of private dairies and co-operative bacon factories can also 

 become members. Members sign a guarantee, the surplus is 

 divided among members in proportion to the amount of their 

 purchases. Members are not bound to make their purchases 

 through the society. In 1916 the number of members was 

 1050, and the turnover was £124,000. The other society, the 

 " Danish Co-operative Manure Supply Society," began as a 

 federation of 21 co-operative societies supplying manures, and 

 was originally intended to assist these and co-ordinate their 

 activities, but gradually the local societies became members 

 of the central society, which carried on the joint purchasing, 

 and the number of such members increased to 800, nearly 

 all of which bound their individual members to purchase 

 all their manures through the society. The annual turn- 

 over of the central society had in 1916 reached the amount 

 of £305,000. 



The use of artificial manures has increased very rapidly of 

 late. The value of the import, free in Danish ports, was in 

 1900, £204,000 ; in 1905, £333,000 ; in 1910, £561,000 ; and in 

 1914, £1,244,000. A joint stock company, the Danish Manure 

 Supply Company, had gradually monopoHsed the trade. In 

 1915 this company notified its customers that if they wished 

 to be supplied at all in the future, they would be required to 

 bind themselves for a period of five or ten years to buy their 

 whole requirements of all sorts of artificial manures from the 

 company. This caused a great and widespread indignation 

 in farming circles throughout the country, and Danish farmers, 

 large and small, felt that another occasion had arisen for meet- 

 ing a threatening trust by applying the co-operative antidote. 

 The man who voiced the feelings of his fellow farmers was also 

 this time Anders Nielsen, Svejstrup Ostergaard, chairman of 

 the Central Co-operative Conomittee, of the Jutland Co- 

 operative Society for the Purchase of Feeding-stuffs and of 

 the Danish Co-operative Manure Supply Society. He called, 

 in December, 1915, and January, 1916, two meetings of 



