AGRICULTURAL COOPERATION IX DEXMARK. 15 
brought on the English market by Danish exporters, it was not a 
large shipment of one uniform grade. 
The marketing problem confronting the average Danish farmer 
in the seventies and eighties is illustrated by the experience of a 
small farmer on the Jutland Peninsula with a herd of six cows. 
He sent his butter to a large butter exposition in London and won 
the first prize. But this recognition on the world butter market did 
not give him a higher price for his small weekly butter production. 
Like many other individual farmers who sent only small amounts, 
he did not receive the top price, regardless of the fact that he was 
selling a premium quality butter. 
This situation made it clear to the farmers that some scheme must 
be devised for grading and standardizing the "farmers' butter" 
before it reached the English markets. The first step was the erec- 
tion of butter-packing establishments, by both joint-stock companies 
and private individuals in many farm communities. Butter was 
manufactured at home and then sent from the various farms to this 
butter-packing establishment which was generally located in a village 
or some central market town. Here the farmers' butter was re- 
packed, blended, and sorted, in the effort to> prepare a uniform 
export product. This farm butter-making and central butter-pack- 
ing system made it possible for the small farmers with a few cows 
each to produce an export product. But as the system did not 
provide the largest utilization possible of the milk and butter it 
did not prove satisfactory. Before the introduction of cream 
separators the system was primitive and wasteful. Another waste 
occurred in the blending and repacking, and the butter was not a 
first-class product. In 1882 9 the yearly average price paid for the 
farmers' butter was about 25 per cent below that paid for estate 
butter. 
The next step was the establishment of the early creamery, where 
both the private and joint-stock company plans were tried, but with- 
out encouraging results. As early as the seventies several attempts 
were made to erect a community creamery and to operate it on a 
cooperative basis. Such attempts failed to materialize, with one 
or two exceptions 10 where the farmers started creameries on co- 
operative lines but failed to win favor and the creameries soon 
passed into the ownership of a single individual, or a joint-stock 
company. 
THE FIRST DANISH COOPERATIVE CREAMERY. 
The Hjedding Creamer} 7 (Hjedding Mejeri), started by a few 
farmers surrounding the village of Hjedding, West Jutland (about 
25 miles northwest from Esbjerg), June 10, 1882, was organized 
on the sound cooperative principles that are characteristic of the 
1,335 cooperative creameries operating in Denmark to-day. Con- 
sequently it is acclaimed as the first typical Danish cooperative 
creamery, and with it began the new dairy industry that spread 
rapidly to every section of the country. 
The question as to how the first cooperative creamery came to 
be organized is frequently asked. 11 In the winter of 1881-82 the 
9 Hertel, H. Andelsbevagelsen. 1917, p. 133. 
10 Andelsbeviig-elsen, 1917, p. 127. 
11 Malkeritideude, 1907, p. 451-63. 
