3l2 Cooperation in Agriculture 



moral element in all kinds of insurance. In the town and 

 county mutuals, the moral risk is very low because the 

 intimate acquaintance of the members insures against 

 the overvaluation of property and the issuing of policies 

 to dishonest people, and it prevents dishonest practices 

 which a person might engage in when dealing with the 

 large insurance corporations located at a distance. Many 

 of the states safeguard the mutual associations against 

 losses that might occur from unusual conflagrations by 

 prohibiting their operation in the larger villages and cities, 

 by confining their operation to restricted territories such 

 as a single town or county or at most to a small number of 

 towns or counties, and by restricting their operations to 

 non-hazardous risks. The kinds of property that can 

 be insured by a mutual insurance association is usually 

 defined by law, in Minnesota the statute providing : 



"Nor shall any township mutual fire insurance com- 

 pany insure any property other than dwellings and their 

 contents, farm buildings and their contents, live-stock, 

 farm machinery, hay, grain, in the bin or stack, churches, 

 schoolhouses, society and town halls, country blacksmith 

 shops and their contents, parsonages and their contents, 

 and the barns and contents used in connection there- 

 with, butter-makers' dwelling houses and contents, and 

 barns and contents used in connection therewith. 



"No such company shall insure any property within 

 the limits of any city or village except that located upon 

 lands actually used for farming or gardening purposes, 

 but whenever the dwelling house of any person insured 

 is within the limits of a town where the company is au- 

 thorized to do business, and the farm on which such dwell- 



