Agricultural Finance & Co-operation, 234 



[September, 1910. 



Co-operation and Fruit-growing, 



Similar considerations apply to the 

 business of fruit-growing. Here, once 

 more, a perishable product demands 

 rapid transport to the market where 

 it is to be sold ; and a large saving can 

 be effected in the cost of carriage by 

 combining to send in large bulk small 

 quantities, which cannot be so economi- 

 cally handled separately. 



Co-operative Dairying. 

 Eggs, no doubt, must be regarded as 

 an auxiliary rather than as a staple 

 product in all except the smallest farms, 

 and fruit-growing is an industry some- 

 what apart from the ordinary develop- 

 ment of agriculture. 



When we come to consider the case of 

 dairying, however, we are dealing with 

 a great staple of agricultural industry. 

 We are dealing also with a branch of 

 agriculture which tends to assume larger 

 and larger proportions, since from what- 

 ever cause, the demand for dairy produce 

 undergoes continuous increase, and shows 

 as yet no sign of having reached its 

 limits. 



It is in Denmark that we find the 

 greatest development of co-operative 

 dairying, although in the United States 

 and Canada, as well as in Germany 

 and Belgium, large results have been 

 achieved ; while Ireland, following 

 elosely on the Danish model, has estab- 

 lished a great system of creameries, 

 through which the national production 

 has been enormously increased. 



The general principles on which these 

 institutions are conducted are every- 

 where very much alike. In each case we 

 have the production of milk at separate 

 farms, and the treatment of milk or 

 manufacture of milk products carried on 

 in combination. In the United States 

 and Canada the product, generally 

 speaking, is cheese, In Denmark, as in 

 Ireland, the principal co-operative indus- 

 try is butter-making. The method of 

 conducting the creameries in which this 

 industry is carried on is that each 

 farmer delivers his milk daily at the 

 creamery, and takes away a correspond- 

 ing quantity of separated milk, which is 

 used on the farm either for rearing 

 calves or in pig-feeding. The cream is 

 separated by power-driven separators 

 and churned into butter ; and the farmer 

 is paid for his milk a certain immediate 

 price corresponding to its quality, and 

 receives afterwards as a bonus a share, 

 proportionate to his supply, of the net 

 profits of the undertaking. These 

 creameries are thus in every respect and 

 throughout co-operative— joint enter- 



prises whose profits are distributed 

 among those who carry them on. 



The Scottish Depots. 



In Scotland co-operative dairying is 

 still in its early stages. But already 

 five co-operative milk-depots are in full 

 working oider, and the success which 

 they have so far attained is leading to 

 the formation of others. 



While butter-making may usefully be 

 undertaken by co-operative dairies in 

 some parts of Scotland, the dairying 

 industry generally takes other forms 

 with greater advantage. Butter is the 

 kind of dairy produce which can be 

 carried most easily and most cheaply, 

 since its value is always more than twics 

 as great as that of a similar weight of 

 cheese, while the transport of fresh milk 

 from a distance is a matter of great 

 difficulty. Butter-making, therefore, is 

 more exposed to foreign competition 

 than other dairying operations, and its 

 profits are thus more restricted. 



In Scotland, generally speaking, it is 

 more profitable to make cheese than 

 butter, and it is as cheese factories . that 

 the co-operative depots are mainly 

 equipped. Even cheese-making, how- 

 ever, is to be regarded rather as a sea- 

 sonal or occasional use of milk in these 

 institutions than as their primary ob- 

 ject. There is a large and increasing 

 market for milk in the towns and popu- 

 lous places of Scotland, and no milk pro- 

 duct yields so good a return as can be 

 obtained for the milk itself, The Scot- 

 tish Co-operative Dairy Associations, 

 therefore, are primarily depots for the 

 sale of fresh milk. They have the great 

 advantage of possessing freezing-plant, 

 by which they t re able to refrigerate 

 milk to an extent impossible at the 

 separate farms ; and this causes an 

 improvement in the keeping properties 

 of their milk which not only stimulates 

 demand for it, but also enables it to be 

 sent to more distant markets. They are 

 further able partly to avoid the waste 

 and»loss that are contingent on the 

 irregularity of the demand for milk. 

 On certain days, and at certain seasons 

 of the year, this demand is greatly 

 reduced, and on these occasions an 

 enormous waste of milk occurs — a waste 

 which must, of course, be met by the 

 milk dealer out of his gross profits. But 

 whenever slackness of demand or in- 

 crease of supply reduce? the price of 

 milk below a certain level or creates a 

 large surplus quantity, the milk depots, 

 equipped with modern cheese-maning 

 apparatus, and managed by skilled 

 cheese-makers, are able to manufacture 

 cheese at a profit. No doubc a similar 



