56 
value affixed by this committee on each animal is based on market 
prices and classification, and this amount is remitted to the owner 
immediately. Generally 1 per cent of the valuation is retained by the 
association to cover any incidental damages or losses in export 
transit. 
After appraisal, the manager is free to dispose of the cattle as he 
thinks best. He may export to foreign buyers, sell direct to ex- 
porters, slaughter at municipal slaughterhouses and export the meat, 
or sell to home butchers. Export is the principal method of sale. 
The cattle are usually consigned to regular customers in foreign 
countries, which may be slaughterhouses or cattle importers. The 
association's manager often sells to better advantage to foreign 
buyers than a private buyer can do, because of the large number of 
cattle at his disposal. 
Any surplus in the association's business at the end of the year 
is divided among the members in proportion to value of cattle de- 
livered. A deficit would be divided in the same way. A part of this 
surplus (usually one-fourth) is retained for a reserve fund which 
provides the necessary operating capital after a few years' successful 
operation. The success of this form of selling organization, aside 
from the members' loyalty, depends largely upon getting a capable 
manager, who is the association's chief salesman. 
COOPERATIVE BUYING. 
Cooperative buying among the rural population has been exten- 
sively developed in Denmark in the purchasing of both household 
necessities and agricultural supplies. The volume of business han- 
dled, by cooperative purchases for the year 1921-22 amounted to 
314,300,000 Danish kroner ($59,761,945 at exchange), of which more 
than half, or 179,600,000 kroner ($34,149,683), represented the co- 
operative wholesale purchasing of household necessities, while coop- 
erative purchasing of farm supplies, such as feeds, fertilizers, seeds, 
machinery, cement, and coal through associations, amounted to 
134,700,000 kroner ($25,612,262). 
COOPERATIVE CONSUMERS' STORE SOCIETIES. 
The cooperative consumers' store movement in Denmark is unique, 
in that, although chiefly a rural development, it has attained the 
largest proportional development of any European country. Ac- 
cording to statistics for 1921, 11.17 per cent of the population in 
Denmark hold membership in the cooperative stores. The Republic 
of Finland ranks second, with 9.86 per cent of its population among 
the members; and England and Scotland, the birthplace of the co- 
operative store, have 9.48 per cent. The consumers' store, which 
originated with the Rochdale weavers in 1844, has developed largely 
among industrial workers not only in the United Kingdom, but in 
all western European countries, except Denmark. Early efforts in 
Denmark with the consumers' store were made by the city working 
classes, but the Danish movement became a rural development with 
four-fifths of the membership in the rural districts. 
Dersnrp 
several ; 
lu the early li flics, several attempts at cooperative distribution of 
household necessities were launched at different times among the 
