FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
15 
Stewart Mills said, “it is not co-operation 
where a few persons join for the purpose 
of making a profit from cheap purchases 
by which a portion of them receive ben¬ 
efit. Co-operation is where the whole 
produce is divided. What is wanted is 
that the whole of the working class should 
partake of the profits of labor.” 
Co-operation is not a noisy or conspic¬ 
uous affair; it asks no laws in its favor; 
it makes no appeal for aid or endowment 
from individuals or from the state; it 
disturbs no interests; attacks nobody’s 
fortune; but stands apart, clears its own 
ground, and gathers its own harvest. 
Industry owes respect to hundreds of 
co-operators who have preceded today. 
Heroditus mentions one hundred and 
Aristotle one hundred and twenty forms 
of community life, all differing but all 
communal in some respect and all succeed¬ 
ing in their day. 
Industrial co-operation had its incep¬ 
tion before this country was born. In 
Rockdale, England, seventy-odd years ago 
was laid the foundation of the wonderful 
co-operative stores today. Some follow¬ 
ers of a man named Robert Owen first 
saw the value of combining, and gathered 
together under the name of the Equitable 
Pioneer Society. This Society hired a 
little room, and after a year or two of 
struggle they raised fourteen hundred dol¬ 
lars and began the first co-operative store 
in England. That was the beginning. To¬ 
day the Co-operative Wholesale Society 
has three million members, is growing at 
the rate of seventy thousand a year; and 
does a yearly business of five hundred and 
fifty million dollars which is increasing 
at the rate of one million dollars annu¬ 
ally. It has buyers and warehouses in 
the United States, Canada, Australia, 
Spain, Denmark and Sweden and owns 
steamers plying between continental and 
English ports. How’s that for co-opera¬ 
tion? Some time ago a working man of 
this society was asked how he liked to 
work for the company, “I don’t work for 
any company,” he replied, “I work for 
us.” I11 Rockdale was fired the first shot 
from the gun of industrial co-operation 
that was heard around the world, and in 
every nation on this globe today this prin¬ 
ciple is being practiced. Four fifths of 
the population of Denmark alone belong 
to co-operative associations and in the 
United States there have been filed, the 
names and addresses of over ten thousand 
marketing organizations, selling a com¬ 
bined agricultural product of over a bil¬ 
lion dollars. Fifteen years ago a pre¬ 
diction was made to Lloyds in London 
that co-operation once started in the Uni¬ 
ted States would reach a far greater de¬ 
velopment than in England and from 
these statistics it seems that this predic¬ 
tion is in a fair way to be fulfilled. 
The handling and marketing of crops 
through co-operative associations is more 
highly developed in fruit growing than 
in any other agricultural industry in 
America. These organizations are form¬ 
ed to purchase the supplies used in the 
production and marketing of the crops, 
to standardize the harvesting, hauling, 
grading and packing of the fruit, and to 
develop a selling organization giving prop¬ 
er distribution, keeping the products of 
the various members from competition 
one with the other, and working to stabil¬ 
ize the market by judicious shipments. 
