THE NEW AGRICULTURE 
203 
working at such problems.^ Scattered though they had been 
in different parts of Europe, they all arrived at the same 
fundamental conclusions. What is more, the remedy which 
they offered has had virtually the same effect in every country 
that has begun to regain its social and agricultural health. 
And what is the formula for this golden discovery .? It sounds 
simple ; it is the cure by cooperation, and the basis of its 
efficacy consists in restoring to the tillers of the soil their 
sense of wholesome dependence one upon another. 
The working out of this new-old principle marks the be- 
ginning of a superb movement ; in fact, cooperative agri- 
culture has begun to sweep across Europe with the onward 
push of a great wave. Even yet it has probably not reached 
the high-water mark. In Denmark, a country where the agri- 
culturist has so fully come into his own, cooperation was first 
attained by a determined uprising of the people ; in Hungary 
it originated with the government ; while in France and Bel- 
gium it started as a reform headed by a handful of keen- 
visioned and devoted Catholic priests. .This binding together 
of whole communities for progress in agriculture, which has 
in every case adapted itself so perfectly to the peculiar needs 
of each country, makes an impressive chapter in the history 
of our time. The story cannot fail to thrill the reader. 
The advance of cooperative agrieulture in Belgium alone 
shows the scope of the movement. A very noble type of 
priest, the Abbe Mellaerts, in about 1890 threw himself into 
it heart and soul. His attention was first aroused by the little 
cooperative banks among German peasants. The business 
suceess of these banks, and their moral influence, so impressed 
him that he determined to found on the same lines an agri- 
eultural league. Within fifteen years this league counted four 
hundred thirty active branches, with thirty-two thousand 
1 Kropotkin, Fields, Factories, and Workshops. 
