The Glenwood post., 1912-06-08

plication of small farms.
Now, as to the question of educa-
ton. 1t is compulsory. 1t has been
compulsory for many years and the
awakening of Denmark to the careful
use of its natural resources is due to
two things-the Danish sense of the
practical value of practical education
and a series of disasters.
1.-The first disaster occurred in the
late 4O's when the discovery was made
that the Danes had so impoverished
their soil by the continuous growing OF
grain that bankruptcy threatened, even
the great landowners being in danger.
Then came the closing Of British ports
TO Danish grain and the growth of
American competition which killed of
whatever prospects of profit the Danes
might have made from their impover-
ished land.
ga very admirable Lutheran bishop,
Grunitwig, saw that the Danes must
be kept at home but that they must
be so educated as to make their coun-
try fit for them to live in. He saw
that patriotism on an empty stomach
would not work and he began to form
the high schools, of which there are
some 1900 in Denmark today, which
fostered and made possible the idea
of cooperation.
From lS4s, the year in which, under
the new constitution, it was possible
for the poor Dane to own land in fee
simple-the constitution meaning the
breaking up of the feudal system of
land tenurcs- until 1886 when Den
mark lost Schleswig- Holstein to Prus-
sia, the Danes struggled against terri
bly, adverse circumstances, and then,
under the impetus which the high
schools had given them, they began to
are open only to men over the age Is
twenty years, the Danish farmers learn
ed to trust one another; they also
learned that with impoverished land
and no capital they could not compete
there with the great landowners VINO
were beginning to sell great quantities
of butter and hogs to England and
Germany
'The tendency in Denmark was and
is to the constant increase of the small
farmers, but the small 1srmer was prac-
tically nothing as an individual. To
control the British market for fresh
butter and the colonial market for
canned butter it was necessary that
they have capital; it was necessary
that their product be the same quantity
all the year and always the same in
quality. To standardize any product
one must have an enormous quantity
of that product and til, power of con
trolling its quality. Tie Danish farm
ers, in order to do this, began to form
cooperative societies.
''This movement, fostered, as l said
by Bishop Grundtwig's high schools,
began by the organization of small So
ceties of farmers Of various districts
In these each man was allowed one
vote; but he guaranteed that he would
supply to the cooperative creamery
just so many pounds of butter fat
butter fat being the commodity IN
which he dealt-and make himself li4
Bile Independently, plus the unlimited
liability of the cooperative society to
the government bank for the amoun5
of the capital borrowed. The province
of the bank in this transaction is not
the main thing to be considered. The
bank must make fair profit, but tha
bank really exists for the benefit of the
farmers through the cooperative socie
ties, which they themselves formed ana
which they themselves govern.
To-day the Danish farmer buys
nothing individually. He uses no seeds
till they have been tested by the e.<
perts furnished by the cooperative So
ciety. He buys his fertilizers, soya
beans from Manchuria, cotton and
meal from the United States, through
the cooperative society. He never
kills his own hogs, though there are
800 hogs to every 1000 persons in Den
mark, but sends them to the co-opera-
tive bacon factories which were found
ed some time in the sos when GERMANY
refused the Danish hog because of an
outbreak of swine fever The Danes
instantly founded, with the assistance
of the government, large cooperative
bacon factories. In order to make
dairying possible, the Danes had to re
generate the land exhausted by the
lack of scientific treatment