No. 4.] RURAL CREDIT, ETC., IN EUROPE. 105 



ized central banks or trading stations for provinces or States, 

 and have further strengthened their status by creating central 

 banks or stations operating over Prussia or Germany. 



Business Co-operation in Austria-Hungary. 



In Austria-Hungary the co-operative movement began little 

 over sixty years ago, but became important v^^ith the founding 

 of the Budapest Central Co-operative Creamery, upon the 

 incentive of the Minister of Agriculture, in 1883. The 1912 

 report shows a membership of 140 farmers holding 648 

 shares. When organized the value of shares v^^as 800 kronen, 

 or $160 each. The association owns a large plant which we 

 visited. The milk comes in from the surrounding country in 

 large cans, and is weighed and turned into the large pasteur- 

 izing tank. Then follows the bottling for market. Sweet 

 milk, baby milk and " sour milk " are sold. Some of the 

 milk is separated, part of the cream being sold and butter 

 made from the remainder. All milk is delivered to retail 

 shops, most of which deal in milk or milk products exclu- 

 sively, selling from pushcarts as well as directly from the 

 store. Seven hundred men and women are employed to 

 handle the output of this association, which amounted, in the 

 month of April. 1913, to 1,909,600 liters (2,055,360 quarts) 

 of milk. The farmers are paid according to the fat content 

 of the milk, which ranged from 3.24 to 3.8 per cent, averag- 

 ing about 3.6 per cent. 



I have described the city co-operative milk plant. The 

 Minister of Agriculture has the following to say in regard to 

 the co-operative village dairy associations : — 



Endeavors to form Village Dairy Co-operative associations were, 

 for a long time, unsuccessful, as our people were not inclined to 

 take up with strange movements, nor did they think it worth while 

 to combine for the sale of their output. It was very difficult to con- 

 vince small fanners that it would pay to establish an association 

 which needed some thousands of crowns initial capital. The Min- 

 ister, however, finally succeeded in persuading the inhabitants of 

 Maria-Kemend County to form an association. Hardly half of the 

 farmers entered, but as the business became established, every owner 

 of a business, every owner of a cow, to the last man, eventually 



