Miscellaneous. 



304 



[May 1907. 



Fortunately, very full information upon this subject of Agricultural Co- 

 operation—or, as it is sometimes called, " the New Agriculture "—is now to be had. 

 Practically the whole of this article is based upon information gleaned from the 

 various publications of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction 

 for Ireland, as well as from the invaluable work of Mr. E. A. Pratt on "The Organi- 

 sation of Agriculture," This latter work relates in clear and popular language the 

 history of Agricultural Co-operation in every part of the world ; and no society or 

 group of individuals contemplating co-operative action can do better than purchase 

 a copy of the work in question, which can be obtained from Messrs. P. Davis and 

 Sons, Maritzburg. The Natal Department of Agriculture is collecting all other 

 available information in regard to agricultural co-operation, and will be able to 

 supply applicants such information as may be needed by those intending to start 

 co-operative societies, including model sets of rules. 



Denmark is acknowledged, by all those who have investigated the subject, 

 to be far and away ahead of all other countries in the matter of Agricultural Co- 

 operation ; and a short description of what has been done there will give a good 

 idea of the enormous advantages— in fact the revolution— brought about by agri- 

 cultural co-operation. As a result of the various European wars, Denmark, from 

 an agricultural point of view, had been practically ruined — having, in addition to the 

 ordinary devastation wrought by wars, been deprived of the best of her agricultural 

 land, and reduced to narrow limits. Of this limited area, a substantial proportion 

 consisted of mere marsh and dune laud -fit apparently for nothing but wind and 

 storms to blow over. With a view to renovating the country, the Danish Heath 

 Society was started in 1866. Roads were made, irrigation schemes were carried out, 

 colonies were established, railways were constructed, and plantations were arranged, 

 the final outcome of the Society's work being that 25,000 acres of sandy land were 

 converted into productive soil, 75,000 acres were planted with conifers, two experi- 

 ment stations were established, and 400 demonstration fields organised in all parts 

 of the country where heath land was to be found. Subsequently, efforts were made 

 by other societies to improve the dairying industry, and, in conjunction with 

 this, poultry and pigs were taken up. As the dairying industry developed, and 

 England became the chief market for Denmark, the Danish Government sent experts 

 to Ireland, to enquire into the methods of breeding and rearing which then obtained 

 in producing the quality of pig required by the Irish Bacon Outer's Association. 

 Pigs were imported from Ireland into Denmark, and, as a consequence of the 

 co-operative movement, such progress was made with the ham and bacon business, 

 that Denmark practically succeeded in driving the Irish ham and bacon industry 

 out of the English market. As a result of efforts made by Sir Horace Plunkett to 

 restore agriculture in Ireland, an Irish Department of Agriculture was formed, and, 

 in 1903, at the instance of the Department of Agriculture, a deputation, representing 

 the Irish Agricultural Industry, was in its turn sent to Denmark, to enquire into 

 the bacon-curing industry of that country, and to endeavour to find out what methods 

 had been followed by the Danish farmers and merchants in so successfully establish- 

 ing co-operative bacon factories with their ever-increasing trade. The valuable 

 report on "Co-operative Associations and rural conditions in Denmark," submitted 

 by the members of this deputation, unanimously attributed the whole of the success 

 of the Danish farmers to co-operation. So strongly impressed were the members of 

 the deputation and the officials of the Irish Department of Agriculture by their 

 Investigations, that steps were immediately taken to organise the agricultural 

 industry of Ireland on the same lines, with the result that Ireland has, in its turn, 

 also forged ahead* The growth of cooperative bacon curing in Denmark, from 

 1883, When it practically started, to 1902, was stated by the deputation to be 

 follows 



