82 THE RURAL PROBLEM 



Malmo they secure most of the prizes given for the first 

 quality of butter shown. In Norway nearly all the 

 creameries are co-operative. Finland, too, copied Denmark 

 and used the co-operative movement as a set-off and response 

 to the Russification of the country, with the result that the 

 proprietary creameries are in a minority. Since the adop- 

 tion of the co-operative principle in the Argentine and the 

 establishment of central butter factories there, Argentine 

 butter obtains a price in England second only to that of 

 Denmark and Sweden. There were 3,488 co-operative 

 dairies in Germany at the end of 1912, with 320,000 members, 

 and scores of new societies were formed in 1912 alone for 

 hydraulic works, for employment of machinery, for horse 

 and cattle improvement, etc. 



In Ireland Sir Horace Plunkett introduced co-operative 

 dairies in 1889, without knowing that they were already a 

 well-established institution in Denmark. At the end of 

 1911 there were 326 dairy societies, with a membership of 

 45,725. In England there is not the same scope for 

 this form of co-operation, as it pays the English farmer 

 better, as a rule, to send his milk into the towns to be sold 

 as milk, and to leave the supply of butter to his Irish, 

 colonial, and foreign competitors. But there are outlying 

 parts of England where farmers cannot readily dispose of 

 their milk in this way ; and, in any case, there is an opening 

 in England for the making of cheese. Yet the first co- 

 operative cheese factory in England was registered only in 

 1903. 



A thoroughly modern creamery can be fitted up at a cost 

 of £1,300 to £1,500, most of which can be met out of sub- 

 sequent profits, so that the actual call on members for cash 

 amounts only to a few shillings a head. There are only five 

 dairy societies affiliated to the A.O.S. at present, and though 

 cheeses are made by societies in Leicestershire and by the 

 Wiltshire Farmers, Ltd., the great bulk of the work done by 

 the comparatively few co-operative dairies in England is 

 distributive, not productive. There is probably no form of 

 co-operation which puts so small a financial burden on its 

 members. 



Denmark again led the way in the establishment of 



