17 INTRODUCTION 
Associate! Co-operate! 
You may not know it, but the world is turn- 
ing from private trade to co-operation at a fast 
rate. In some countries most of the farmers 
do all their business by co-operation. 
Co-operation is simple and sure and safe, 
when enough people want it and are shown how. 
I have practiced co-operation in my business 
for twenty-three years. I have been intimate 
with it the world over for twenty-five years. 
I have seen it grow and grow until it numbers 
its millions of workers in some countries, and is 
doubling every five years in many countries 
and states. Though I am a manufacturer, my 
chief occupation is to preach and teach co- 
operation to farmers—at my own expense. 
Co-operative creameries have changed Min- 
nesota from a declining wheat state to a rich 
dairy state. Co-operation has saved the Cali- 
fornia orange grower from bankruptcy and 
made him prosperous; it has raised Denmark’s 
exports of butter, eggs and bacon from eighteen 
to eighty millions a year, and it has almost cut 
off our supply of policemen and politicians from 
Ireland, because over a thousand co-operative 
associations have grown up there in twenty 
years. 
After you have undertaken what this book 
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