256 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



is to improve tlie educational and social condition of farm- 

 ers and rural communities. So great and powerful has 

 become their influence, not only in local communities but 

 in State and nation, that legislative bodies regard their 

 opinions and requests with deference, and the vast amount 

 of good they have accomplished in educational and social 

 improvement can never be estimated. Some of these or- 

 ganizations have attempted to make of themselves business 

 organizations, with only partial success, and in some cases 

 with disastrous results. This is but an illustration of try- 

 ing to accomplish something outside of the main purpose 

 for which they were designed, at the same time demonstrat- 

 ing the desirability of business organizations among farm- 

 ers. Co-operative associations for business purposes among 

 farmers are relatively new, and in only a few branches has 

 co-operation been tried. Co-operative cheese and butter 

 factories are perhaps the most extensive and successful of 

 such organizations, and illustrate clearly what can be done 

 in the way of business for the farmer and his products, 

 greatly to his advantage, by combined efforts. 



To-day those engaged in almost every kind of business 

 are combining and organizing for their mutual benefit ; and, 

 while we hear a great many deprecating remarks in regard 

 to trusts, we have yet to learn wherein they have been of 

 material injury to any one, and in many instances they have 

 cheapened commodities to the consumer. They have been 

 of great advantage in the conduct of business to those who 

 have formed them. Farmers as a class are slow to coml)ine 

 for their mutual benefit in business ; but why should they 

 not, as well as the manufacturers or the producers of any 

 commodity ? It seems to the writer that along this line of 

 organization should the attention of the agriculturists be 

 directed, thus taking themselves out of the hands, so far as 

 possible, of those who get the largest per cent of what the 

 consumer pays for the products of the farmer. Cheapening 

 farm products to the consumer and getting more for himself 

 are among the possibilities to be realized. 



Agricultural societies and their annual fairs have had an 

 influence which has aftected the whole people in a greater or 

 less degree, according to the interest taken in them. Nor 



