Junk 1907.] 



393 



Miscellaneous. 



This was the critical position in the period referred to above and it was met 

 in an eminently practical way by " a certain M. Tauviray, Departmental Professor 

 of Agriculture at Blois." This gentleman found that there was great difficulty in 

 getting the agriculturists to use for their impoverished lands the fertilizers which 

 agricultural chemistry was offering to them ; but he saw, also, that their reluctance 

 was not unnatural. Apart from the ignorance and prejudices of the farmers in 

 respect to the use of artificial manures, the producers thereof, having to send out 

 travellers and push a business then far from active, charged high prices, and, what 

 was still worse, sent out adulterated or inferior qualities. M. Tauviray's happy 

 inspiration was to get all the farmers in a certain district to join together in sending 

 in one big order, by. means of which they would be able to purchase the fertilizers 

 at a less price, get lower railway rates, and also be in a better position to secure a 

 guarantee of quality. A combination, with these objects in view, was brought about 

 in 1883, and when, in March, 1884, organisations of this type acquired a legal status 

 in France, many more of such purchase associations followed. The use of the 

 fertilizers was found to yield increased crops at a reduced cost, and the operation of 

 the new syndicates obviated all the difficulties previously experienced. So the 

 movement for the establishment of agricultural syndicates spread, in course of time 

 throughout the whole of France, while in proportion as their utility was more and 

 more recognised, the scope of their activity widened. Seeds and feeding-stuffs were 

 purchased in wholesale lots, the same as fertilizers. So were tools and agricultural 

 appliances of various kinds, while special syndicates either procured agricultural 

 machinery too costly for individual farmers to get for themselves and let it out on 

 hire, or enabled farmers to purchase on special terms. 



In these and other ways there was, in the first instance, a direct appeal to 

 the material interests of the agriculturists ; and the leaders of the new movement 

 had the good fortune to win the early sympathy of the farming community by the 

 offer of practical advantages which prepared for further considerable developments 

 of the combination principle a class of men who, in France, as in England, might well 

 be regarded as the least likely to co-operate for the achievement of a common 

 purpose. 



Thus the movement spread rapidly and in less than twenty years, the number 

 of these agricultural associations, whose formation had been officially notified up to 

 1st January 1903, amounted to 2,433 and the total membership was 599,000. There 

 were also provincial and central syndicates formed for the purpose of influencing 

 public opinion on agricultural questions by means of publications, conferences, etc., 

 and to conduct, in general, campaigns by which the views expressed at the represen- 

 tative gatherings of agriculturists might be carried to a successful issue. From the 

 magnitude of the orders given under this system of combination, the agricultural 

 associations secure a threefold advantage : (1) They get wholesale prices from the 

 manufacturers instead of retail, these prices being made still lower by the fact that 

 the manufacturer, dealing direct with an association or union, incurs less expense for 

 travellers, etc. ; (2) the quality has to stand the tests of the association's experts ; 

 and (3) lower railway rates are obtained because the consignments are sent to 

 central depots in waggon-load lots instead of small quantities. So, the small 

 cultivator who buys a couple of sacks of fertilizers or feeding-stuffs through his 

 association gets just the same advantages in price and railway rates as a large 

 farmer who orders his five or ten tons. These facilities, combined with the skilled 

 advice given free by the associations, have led to a very great increase in the use of 

 fertilizers in France, and many factories have been set up in that country for their 

 production, while a decrease of from 40 to 50 per cent, has been effected in the prices 

 as compared with what they were before the advent of the agricultural associations. 



