German Co-operative Societies. 



38i 



for each cow they possess ; one quarter is applied to the 

 paying off of capital, 1 5 per cent, is put by as a reserve 

 fund, and the remainder is distributed as a bonus among 

 the employes. The price received by the shareholders for 

 milk averaged $\d. per gallon ; but with the proportion of 

 profit received, it amounted to about \d. The separated milk 

 returned is assumed to be worth if</., so that the milk may 

 be said to give a return of about §\d. per gallon. 



Consul- General Dundas reports that the manufacture of 

 margarine has made great progress in 



Ma Norway "* Norwa y> and that the number of factories 

 has doubled during the last five years. 

 Of the thirteen factories, which give employment to two or 

 three hundred men, four (employing 120 hands) are situated 

 in Christiania. The quantity of margarine exported from 

 Norway in 1896 was 2,523 tons, of the value of ^112,167 

 (against 1,800 tons and £90,880 in 1895), of which over 1,400 

 tons went to Sweden, 550 to Denmark, and 434 to the United 

 Kingdom. 



^Foreign Office Report \ Annual Series , No. 2013. Price 2\d.~\ 



According to a recent number of the Landwirthschaftliche 



Jahrbucher the Agricultural Co-operative 



German Associations existing- in the German 



Agricultural Co- & 

 operative Societies Empire on July 1st, 1896, numbered 



9,010, comprising 6,391 credit societies 



or rural banks ; 905 associations for the purchase of manures 



and other farming requisites ; 1,397 co-operative dairies ; and 



307 associations for various other purposes. In 1891 the 



number of Agricultural Co-operative Societies of all kinds in 



Germany was 3,625 ; thus in the interval between 1891 and 



1896 there has been an increase of about 5,400 in the number 



of these institutions. This development is largely due to the 



establishment during the past five years of over 4,000 new 



credit banks in various parts of the country. 



