FARMERS AS I SEE THEM

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 2, Issue 123, 29 August 1913, Page 4

FARMERS AS I SEE THEM

Mr Wesley Spragg's View. Of Dairymen and Cooperation. In the course of his speech at t!:e annual meeting of shareholders of the New Zealand Dairy Association, held in Pukekohe last Saturday, Mr Wesley Spragg mirrored the farmer as he sees him. As the other felllow's opinion is generally purifying, our farming readers will doubtl S3 read with interest a descuption of what they look like tnrough Mr Spragg's spectacles. The Chairman of Directors said: — "The Company in i!s present cooperative form ia now nearly 12 years eld its growth in that pericd may be acccunted very satisfactory when it is rememoered how small is the true spirit of co-operation among dairy farmers. It may be and probably ii tJ th:ir credit, that the members of no class of the community are more sturdy and uncompromising in their individuality then the people upon the land. Their disposition is to stand straight up on their uWn two legs and to be slow to accept assistance from anybody. As 1 know the dairy farmer, it is difficult tur me to conceive of him as being herded and driven, or even led very readily. He represents a type uf a democrat which present) some of the most sterling aspects of a democracy, and at the same lima offers some of iU mest difficult problems. Side by side with the admirable characteristic of yeoman independence is the related disvantage ef unweldability. However admirable fragments may be as fragments, the drawbacks of intense individuality Ere of corresponding magnitude when unity is the way of progress. I have described the faimer as 1 have known him somewhat intimately for considerably over a quarter of a century. There are indications that osir.g to experience the value of cc-opcration is appealing to him to-day as it has never appeal :d before. . . . The growth of our own institution, acd the growth among our own psopls of t : e somewhat alien but beneficent spirit of co-operation, whhh is responsible for that expansion, is a matter for sincere congratulation."