Progress of Agricultural Co-operation.. 



tion consists in the utterance of a single sentence from the Hps 

 of the leading farmer in the neighbourhood to the following 

 effect: — "I used to think that this agricultural co-operation 

 was all nonsense, but now I am going to back it and put my 

 money into it." The small producers readily follow the lead of 

 the big farmers, and it is noteworthy that a very high proportion 

 of the membership of the largest and most successfal farmers' 

 societies consists of men farming less than 50 acres, and that 

 even those societies which consisted mainly in the past of com- 

 paratively large farmers are daily increasing the small producer 

 element, and are developing the system of local depots, with 

 branch advisory committees, which are needed to meet the 

 requirements of those who cannot afford to buy in truck-loads. 

 Indeed, the small farmer must be hnked up with the large 

 farmer if he is to obtain the maximum benefit from co-operative 

 purchase and sale, as the larger the bulked trading transaction 

 the greater the possibihty of substantial savings in cost. 



Influence of the War on Co-operation.— The fact is that the 

 agricultural community of this country is being driven into co- 

 operative methods by the sheer force of circumstances, and is 

 recognising the need for developing its commercial organisation, 

 on the lines which are proving most successful in other iorms of 

 business enterprise. The prodigious and necessary expansion of 

 the wage bill, the huge increase in the cost of feeding stuffs, 

 fertilisers and other raw materials, and perhaps more than all 

 the new consciousness on the part of the consumer of his rights 

 as a consumer and of his difficulty in coping with the high cost 

 of living, have forced the farmer to realise that he can afford to 

 neglect no means of cutting down the cost of production or of 

 effecting savings in the handling, distribution and marketing of 

 his produce. The root causes, therefore, of the extraordinary 

 growth of the co-operative movement during the past twelve 

 months are to be traced to conditions which arise directly out 

 of the changes effected by the War, and the Agricultural Organisa- 

 tion Society does not claim more than the provision of a well- 

 planned lay-out and effective machinery, for which the motive 

 power has been supplied by the farmers themselves. 



England v. Denmark. — The historian of the future will perhaps 

 be more interested in examining the defects which the spread of 

 agricultural co-operation has revealed than in describing its 

 actual growth and development, and indeed the diagnosis and 

 remedial treatment of these defects is essential to the health of 



