1 Szpr., 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 189 
Agriculture. 
THE GERMAN FARMER. 
CO-OPERATIVE FARMING IN GERMANY. 
A Constnar Report on this subject has just been issued (says Zhe Standard) 
by the Foreign Office, bringing into strong relief the causes which have 
enabled German so much more successfully than British agriculture to fight 
against depression. Some of those burdens which press so heavily on our 
home industry are unknown in Germany, while at the same time her fariners 
have enjoyed the benefit of protection, which, however mischievous in its 
general effects, undoubtedly answers its purpose in the case of those for whom 
it is primarily intended. The report has been received from Mr. T. R. 
Mulvany, our Consul at Diisseldorf, and is drawn up by a German expert, Mr. 
F, Koenig, who is said to be specially well qualified for the purpose. They 
agree in attributing the most salutary effects to fair freights and moderate 
protection. But Mr. Koenig brings together a great mass of evidence to show 
that other causes have contributed very largely to the same result, though he 
does not go so far as to say that these alone, without the other two, would 
have enabled the German farmer to prosper as he does. 
State aid in Germany has been carried out on a scale wholly unknown in 
this country. The State has founded Agricultural Colleges at many of the old 
universities—at Berlin, Gdttingen, Leipsic, Halle, Munich, and Bonn among 
others ; and where there are no colleges there is a Chair of Agriculture, with 
rofessors to lecture on the subject. Thus an amount of scientific knowledge 
as been disseminated among the German farmers which has qualified them to 
cope ‘‘with the dishonesty of dealers in cake, meal, seed, and mineral manures ; 
has taught them how to feed their stock so as to produce either meat, milk, or 
muscle; and what quantities of nitrogen, phosphates, and potash a crop needs, 
and which must be replaced.” Our German expert assumes that the British 
farmer is deficient in this kind of knowledge. If so, it is a pity, since he can 
buy all mineral manures, cakes, and meal much more cheaply than _ his 
Continental rivals. While plenty of scientific agricultural knowledge exists 
in England, we fear that it is not diffused, but sticks fast somewhere among 
the capitalists. It is not, however, only the Agricultural Colleges at the 
universities to which our attention is directed. By means of schools established 
all over Germany, and maintained or subsidised by the State, agricultural 
science is brought home to the peasant farmer. In Wurtemberg there isa 
special school for the training of farmers’ sons. There are dairy and farriery 
schools. ‘One of the greatest of German institutions is the State experimental 
stations, established for the purpose of making experiments of all kinds, and 
for testing fodder, manure, seeds, &c., for farmers, at quite ‘a nominal fee.” 
There are some private establishments of the same kind, but the greater part 
are subsidised by the State. 
Even local Chambers of Agriculture receive State assistance, and travelling 
agricultural lecturers are also supported by Government. But the report 
attributes even more to the principle of co-operation than to State education. 
Co-operation is the German farmer’s stronghold and bulwark, and he means 
to stand by it.” Itis of various kinds. There are co-operative credit banks, 
the working of which is fully explained in the report, co-operative dairies, 
co-operative steam ploughs, and co-operative drainage and irrigation. ‘ Co- 
operation,” says Mr. Koenig again, “has proved to be the key to success in 
Germany, and has saved many thousands of farmers from ruin.” 
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