28 BULLETIN 1266, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The practices and operations of the cooperative butter export asso- 
ciations may be summarized as follows: 
(1) When a creamery joins an export association, it agrees by con- 
tract to deliver its total butter production to the association for one 
year, except what butter is needed for home consumption. With- 
drawal may occur at the end of each fiscal year, provided six months' 
previous notice is given. 
(2) Butter export associations are nonstock associations. The 
necessary fixed capital is supplied by loan and no initial outlay of 
money is required by members. In addition to the delivery pledge 
obligation, the members are jointly liable for any financial obligation 
incurred by the association. However, the common practice is to re- 
strict this liability to a certain limit. A marketing terminal of this 
type requires only a comparatively small investment with modest 
offices and warehouse at shipping port (fig. 10) where the butter is 
assembled from creameries in the surrounding territory. Xo butter 
is kept in storage: clean sales are made each week. Butter trade of 
this type, with standarized products, requires only a comparatively 
.-mall operating capital. 
(3) The control of the association lies with a committee which 
usually consists of three representatives from each creamery elected 
by the local membership. This large committee of representatives 
elects from its own number a board of five directors. This board 
employs an experienced butter merchant to manage the association's 
business. 
(4) Each week's butter production in the local creamery up to 
Monday, inclusive, is shipped either Monday afternoon or Tuesday 
morning to the warehouse of the export association. Here each 
creamery's butter is scored in weekly judging contests arranged by 
the association. The judges are selected from the trade, creamery 
managers and government dairy specialists. With this quality classi- 
fication as a basis for paying the creameries each week, the butter is 
then pooled and sold by the association. The price determining the 
partial payment, which the export association remits to the cream- 
eries for their butter the same week, is based on the coming Thurs- 
day's Coj:>enhagen butter quotation. In one association the actual 
paying of this partial payment is deferred one week, giving the asso- 
ciation the use of the money for operating purposes. 
The surplus earnings are retained by the association and remitted 
to the creameries at the close of each fiscal year. Substantial reserve 
funds are provided for in each association. These associations usually 
own stock in the Danish Cooperative Bank, and some associations 
are accumulating a special insurance fund, proposing to establish 
their own sea-risk insurance. 
(5) The export association takes care of transportation charges 
from the creamery to its warehouse at the shipping port. With 
the Danish butter trade to Great Britain, sales by the export asso- 
ciation are made largely to wholesalers and larger retail buyers by 
telegraphic communication each week on definite order at a Hxed 
price basis, 1'. o. 1). Denmark. In pre-war times, large quantities 
of Danish butter were sold direct to retailers in Great Britain, but 
since the war British butter trade conditions have eliminated most 
of tlii- former direct retail and wholesale trade, and large quantities 
