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CO-OPERATIVE FARMING IN GERMANY. 



A Consular Report on this subject, says the London Standard ^ has 

 llately been issued by the Foreign Office, bringing into strong relief the 

 xauses which have enabled German so much more successfully than 

 l^ritish a^^riculture to fight against depression. Some of those burdens 

 which press so heavily on our home industry are unknown in Germany, 

 while at the same time her farmers have enjoyed the benefit of Pro- 

 tection, which, however mischievous in its general effects, undoubtedly 

 answers its purpose in the case of those for whom it is primarily in- 

 tended. The Report has been received from Mr T. R Mulvany, our 

 Consul at Diiss^ldorf, and is drawn up by an expert, Mr. F. Koenig, 

 who is said to be specially well qualified for the purpose. They agree 

 in attributing the most salutary effects to fair freights and moderate 

 Protection. But Mr. Koenig brings together a great mass of evidence 

 to show that other causes have contributed very largely to the same 

 result, though he does not go so far as to say that these alone, without 

 the other two, would have enabled the German farmer to prosper as 

 he does. 



State aid in Germany has been carried out on a scale wholly unknown 

 in England. The State has founded Agricultural Colleges at many 

 of the old Universites — at Berlin, Gottingen, Leipsic, Halle, Munich, 

 and Bonn, among others ; and where there are no Colleges there is a 

 Chair of Agriculture, with Professors to lecture on the subject. Thus 

 an amount of scientific knowledge has been disseminated among the 

 German farmers which has qualified them to cope " with the dishonesty 

 of dealers in cake, meal, seed, and mineral manures ; has taught them 

 how to feed their stock so as to produce either meat, milk, or muscle ; 

 and what quantites of nitrogen, phosphates, and potash a crop needs, 

 and which must be replaced." Our expert assumes that the British 

 farmer is deficient in this kind of knowledge. If so, it is a pity, since 

 he can buy all mineral manures, cakes, and meal much more cheaply 

 than his Continental rivals. While plenty of scientific agricultural 

 knowledge exists in England, we fear that it is not diffused, but sticks 

 fast somewhere among the capitalists. It is not, however, only the 

 Agricultural Colleges at the Universities to which our attention is 

 directed. By means of schools established all over Germany, and 

 maintained or subsidised by the State, agricultural science is brought 

 home to the peasant farmer. In Wurtemburg there is a special school 

 for the training of farmers' sons. There are dairy and farriery schools. 



One of the greatest of German institutions is the State Experimental 

 Stations, established for the purpose of making experiments of all 

 kinds, and for testing fodder, manure, seeds, &c., for farmers, at quite 

 a nominal fee. There are some private establishments of the same 

 kind, but the greater part are subsidised by the State. Even local 

 Chambers of Agriculture receive State assistance, and travelling agri- 

 cultural lecturers are also supported by Government. But the Report 

 attributes even more to the principle of co-operation than to State edu- 

 cation. " Co-operation is the German farmer's stronghold and bulwark, 

 and he means to stand by it." It is of various kinds. There are co- 

 operative Credit Banks, the working of which is fully explained in the 



