December, 1911.] 



539 Agricultural Finance & Co-operation. 



assistance to agricultural labourers to 

 acquire their holdings, bhere has been 

 falling off in the number of emigrants. 



Advantages of Co-operation to Small 

 Agriculturists. — The peasant farmers 

 and small holders, being naturally men 

 of small means, would in many instances 

 have found it very difficult to bring 

 their produce to an advantageous mar- 

 ket. By means of co-operation the small 

 man is able to reach the best market 

 possible. The co-operative dairy, of 

 which he is a member, buys his milk of 

 him at the market rate, and sells him 

 back at a low price the separated milk 

 on which he feeds his pig. The pig he 

 sells to the co-operative bacon factory 

 at a price determined by the demand 

 of the British market, while his eggs 

 are disposed of to the co-operative egg 

 export association. In this manner he 

 receives as good a price as if he were 

 able to bring his produce himself to 

 Copenhagen, nor do his benefits from 

 co-operation cease there. He obtains all 

 he wants for himself, his family, or his 

 farm from a co-operative supply associ- 

 ation, while a similar association insures 

 him. 



Character of the Danish Peasant— It 

 must not be forgotten that the Danish 

 peasant is a very hard-working man. 

 His hours are generally longer than in 

 England, and his way of life cheaper. 

 He is also very honest. This honesty, 

 and the mutual trust which results from 

 it, may be taken to be the moral found- 

 ation of the co-operative movement in 

 Denmark. Without this mutual trust, 

 which is doubtless strengthened very 

 greatly by the tact that, distances being 

 small, most members of a co-operative 

 undertaking are personally known to 

 each other, it is difficult to imagine how 

 the co-operative movement could have 

 grown so rapidly. 



Education.— To this innate honesty 

 one must add an excellent education, 

 received in the first instance at the State 

 school, and later at one of the high 

 schools, agricultural colleges, or cottars' 

 schools. These schools, by bringing 

 young men and women of the agricul- 

 tural classes together, are undoubtedly 

 not without their value in preparing 

 them for working along co-operative 

 lines, 



These observations may, perhaps, be 

 considered beside the mark, but the 

 extraordinary success which has attend- 

 ed the introduction of co-operation into 

 Danish Agricultural life, cannot be as- 

 cribed solely to geographical formation 

 and favourable legislation, 



Co-operative Dairies. — The first co-oper- 

 ative dairy in Denmark was founded in 

 1882 in Jutlaud, and the movement 

 almost immediately became general. So 

 quickly, indeed, did co-operative dairies 

 spring up over the whole country that 

 in 1903, which unless otherwise stated, 

 will be the year of all figures given in 

 this report, there were some eleven hun- 

 dred such dairies. 



Extent of the Movement.— A better 

 idea of the extent of the movement will 

 be gathered from the fact that there are 

 174,742 farms with cows in Denmark ; of 

 these 143,863, or 82*3 per cent., are in the 

 hands of men who are members of a 

 co-operative dairy. N.B.— As these 

 figures date from 1903, it may safely be 

 taken that there has been some increase 

 since that year, and it may be added 

 that when the statistics were taken, 

 some 4,800 of the circulars sent out were 

 returned either not filled up, or unsatis- 

 factorily filled up, so that these figures 

 represent a minimum not a maximum. 

 Again, of the 1,066,698 cows in Denmark, 

 862,986, or 80*9 per cent, are owned by 

 farmers who are members of co-operative 

 dairies, while of the remainder about 10 

 per cent, deliver their milk to joint 

 dairies, so that about nine-tentflis of the 

 milk produced in the country is dealt 

 with in dairies working on the principle 

 of association. 



Participation of Different Classes in 

 the Movement- — At tnis point it is of 

 interest to note the manner in which 

 the different classes of farms participate 

 in this movement. Of the very small 

 farms only 3 - l per cent, are members of 

 a co-operative dairy, but at the same 

 time the milk of 58 per cent, of all the 

 cows owned by this class of peasant 

 farmer is delivered to some such dairy. 

 In other words, most of these farmers 

 are too small to possess a cow, while 

 more than half of those that do are 

 members of a co-operative dairy, 



The next class most weakly interested 

 in the co-operative dairy movement is 

 that of the large farmers — in many cases 

 the great land-owners— of whom only 

 43'3 per cent, are members of a co- 

 operative dairy. In this case the reason 

 is to be found in the fact that they are 

 very often owners of dairies in which 

 they deal with their own milk— in some 

 few cases even adding to it by buying 

 milk from their smaller neighbours. 



Between these two extremes about 85 

 per cent, of all the farmers are members 

 of a co-operative dairy, i.e., about 85 per 

 cent, of the milk produced in the country 

 is sold to a co-operative institution. 



