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DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



the placing of buildings, the planning of fields, and the rotation of crops. 

 This information will be helpful to the individual farmer, but much re- 

 mains to be done in cooperative lines. 



Cooperation in Agriculture 

 The work of the cooperators in Europe nas attracted widespread atten- 

 tion. Through combination they have been able to standardize their prod- 

 ucts, lower the cost of production and finance their operations. The Danes 

 have carried cooperation into most of their agricultural operations while 

 retaining individual ownership and control of lands. The extent to which 

 this movement has gone in this remarkable country is well shown in the 

 fact that the 200,000 farmers have 4,000 societies and these societies have 

 20,000 board members. In 1911 the export of butter from Denmark was 

 229,300,000 pounds; in the same year the bacon export was 252,200,000 

 pounds. 



Financing the Farmer 



Not long ago the writer had a letter from a woman homesteader in 

 -southwestern North Dakota. She pointed out how the settler was left 

 with little or nothing after he had proved up. If he borrows $400 or $500 

 on a quarter section to pay the government, there was left a possible $250 

 to purchase stock and tools. The Canadian government and the Canadian 

 railways have recognized this situation by extending credit to the settler 

 to the amount of $3,000 to erect his buildings and an additional $1,000 

 to buy stock. The loans are protected by legal devices that are fair for 

 botn parties to the transaction. 



In the United States the financial development, so far as banks are 

 concerned, has been in the direction of meeting commercial demands. The 

 loans on mortgages have been for short terms and on commercial paper 

 in the main for periods of ninety days or less. These conditions do not 

 meet the needs of the farmer, whose time of production is longer and his 

 earnings smaller than in manufacturing enterprises. While it is true that 

 the large farmer has little difficulty in securing the money he wants for 

 agricultural purposes, the small farmer, like the woman homesteader, finds 

 it difficult to secure the necessary financial assistance. Moreover, the 

 farmer goes in debt for seed and machinery, so that his enterprise is 

 burdened from the start. 



Agricultural Credit. 



Because the financial institutions have not been constructed to serve 

 the special needs of the farmer, storekeepers, implement dealers and pur- 

 chasers of farm products have been forced to furnish financial aid. This 

 situation has been met in Europe by the creation of cooperative credit, 

 and land banks. The fact that the outstanding feature of agriculture is 

 the length of the period of production requires a different credit organiza- 

 tion than that developed by merchants and manufacturers for themselves. 



By uniting groups into a socalled bank, utilizing their joint credit 

 on the basis of unlimited liability of shareholders, agricultural credit so- 

 cieties were created that have increasingly met the needs in Europe. So, 



