CO-OPERATION IN DENMARK.

Otaki Mail, 6 January 1919, Page 4

CO-OPERATION IN DENMARK.

The area of Denmark, excluding its possessions of Iceland and Greenland, Which do not count in this instance, is less than 15,000 square miles. In comparison with such a vast area as Queensland, it is little more than a great cattle station in the north-west. Less than a•» century ago Denmark was one of the most poveriy-striken countries in j Europe; to-day, in comparison with J population, it is probably the wealth- , iost. Poverty now is almost unknown i in Denmark, and its population has deposits in its savings banks of over | £5(1,01)0,000. Ninety per cent, of the ! families own their own farm and : houses, and ’the value of the agricultural produce exported in an average ' year before the war was £25,000,000. i There have been ■ two secrets of this wonderful success—education and eo- j operation. Denmark is the best edueated country in the world. The Dane J regards ignorance as “a blasting, - blistering, withering curse” that makes for stagnation, and agricultural education is one of the great features of the ? Danish system. (The complete educational system of the country has enabled the Dane to assimilate ideas that are beneficial, and ] £ if has produced the greatest co-opera- j r tionists in the world. There are, t roughly speaking, 240,000 farms in Denmark. Of these no fewer than OS,OOO have an area of less than one and a-half acres each; (15,000 have an area each of one and a-half acres to thirteen acres: 4(5,000 range from thirteen acres to. ( forty acres; and 01,000 vary from forty ;to 550 acres. The lirst co-operative 1 creamery was established in Denmark in HSB2. In 100 S there were 1101 cooperative creameries handling the whole of the milk of the country. The creameries employ no agents or middlemen. They have their own export associations. six in number, which transact the whole business. The first co-operative bacon company was launched in ISS3; in 1910 there were thirty-four factories with a membership of 93,000 farmers, and tho export: trade was worth £400,000 a year. The.first co-operative egg export ColDjKiny was started in 1895. Twenty years later there were 550 such cooperative companies, and the Turnover in 190 S was £1,600,000. The lirst co-operative cow-testing association was formed in 1593 with only thirteen members. In 1909 there were 530 cow-testing associations. The book from which we are quoting—one issued by the Illinois Department of Agriculture in 1918—says that the aver--8 age butter production per cow is 2241 b, j or twice as much, as it was in 1884.