AGRICULTURAL COOPERATION IN DENMARK. 83 
board of representatives, which controls the management of the 
association and appoints an executive board of three directors, one of 
whom must possess a legal and another an agricultural training. 
Each district unit elects three appraisers, for a term of three years, 
to appraise the property of loan seekers in their district. 
A loan seeker must himself be farming the land on which he bor- 
rows. He first submits to the local appraiser his application with 
complete information and documents concerning his property. Two 
of the local appraisers are then obligated, within 14 days, to examine 
the property personally and appraise it, The application, together 
with the appraisers' report, is delivered to the district's representa- 
tive, who forwards it to the association. Final decision on the 
amount of the loan and membership is made by the executive board 
of the association. 
Immediately following the credit law of 1850, the first credit asso- 
ciation was formed, in 1851, by farm owners on the Jutland Pen- 
insula, and the same year another association was formed on the 
Island of Sjaelland. By 1880 there were seven credit associations 
engaged solely in farm-mortgage business, and these are all doing a 
sound, substantial business to-day. As a rule, these credit associa- 
tions restrict their business to a certain area. They operate inde- 
pendently, and their business activities are in no way centralized. 
In fact, it is the policy for each association to lend only on property 
holdings of a uniform type. Special legislation later extended simi- 
lar credit-association facilities to town and city property owners, and 
separate credit associations were formed which specialize in town and 
city properties ; but in each case the loan must meet the requirements 
specified by law. 
As existing credit associations did not satisfactorily provide for 
the credit needs of the small-farm proprietors, additional credit 
legislation was enacted in 1880 to provide for the formation of 
small-holders' credit associations, of which there are now two, one 
on the islands and one on the peninsula. In organization and op- 
eration they are similar to the credit associations previously men- 
tioned, except that loans granted can not exceed 50 per cent of the 
valuation and repayment is usually based on the 45-year amortiza- 
tion plan. The loans are smaller and the bonds issued by the small- 
holder credit associations are guaranteed by the State. This State 
guarantee was found advisable to avoid low quotation of these bonds 
on the market, and has made these bonds very attractive, especially 
to foreign capital. As a result, they are usually quoted slightly 
higher than other land bonds bearing a similar rate of interest. 
There are now 13 credit associations in Denmark providing long- 
term credit on first mortgages. Loans through these credit associa- 
tions have grown steadily until they have become the most important 
form of long-term credit in the country. At the end of March, 
1921 , 62 these 13 credit associations had outstanding 277,767 loans 
whose aggregate value was 2,705,168,000 kroner ($490,987,992 at ex- 
change as of that date) . This represented more than half of the total 
long-term first-mortgage credit utilized by the Danish farmers. The 
soundness with which the associations operate, and the high degree 
of care exerted in fixing the valuations on which the loans are based, 
^Statistisk Aarbog 1923, p. 120. 
