The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1912-06-01

4
made from their impoverished land.
"A very admirable Lutheran bishop,
Grundtwig, 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 1000 in Denmark today, which
fostered and made possible the idea
of cooperation.
From 1S4S, the year in which, I'M
der the new constitution, it was pos
lsible for the poor Dane to own land
in fee simple-the constitution mean
ing the breaking up of the feudal sys-
tenn of land tenures-until 1868, when
Denmark lost Schleswig- Holstein to
Prussia, the Danes struggled against
terrible adverse circumstances, and
then, under the impetus which the
high schools had given them, they be-
gan to cooperate. In the high schools
which are open only to men over the
age of 20 years, the Danish farmers
learned to trust one another; they also
learned that with impoverished land
and no capital they could not com
pete there with the great landowners
who were beginning to sell great
quantities of butter and hogs to Eng
land and Germany.
''The tendency In Denmark was and
is to the constant increase of the
small farmers, but the small farmer
was practically nothing as an indi-
vidual To control the British mark
ct for fresh butter and the colonial
market for canned butter it was nee
essary that they have capital; 1t was
necessary that their product be the
same in quantity all the year and al
ways the same in quality. To stand
ardize any product one must have an
enormous quantity of that product and
the power of controlling its quality.
The Danish farmers, in order to do
this, began to form cooperative So
cieties.
Cooperation.
"This movement, fostered, as 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
which he dealt-and make himself
liable independently, plus the unlimit-
ed liability of the cooperative socie-
| ty to the government bank for the
amount of the capital borrowed. The
province of the bank in this transac-
ton is not the main thing to be con-
sidered. The bank must make fair
profit, but the bank really exists for
the benefit of the farmers through the
cooperative societies, which they
themselves formed and which they
themselves govern.
To-day the Danish farmer buys
nothing individually. He uses no
seeds till they have been tested by the
experts furnished by the cooperative
society. 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
500 hogs to ever 1000 persons in Den
mark, but sends them to the co-ope-
rative bacon factories, which were
founded some time in the SOS when
Germany refused the Danish hog be-
cause of an outbreak of swine fever
The Danes instantly founded, with the
assistance of the government, large
cooperative bacon factories. In or
der to make dairying possible the
Danes had to regenerate the land ex-
hausted by the lack of scientific treat
ment.
Denmark is not a good grazing
country. The climate for grazing pur-
poses is probably the worst in the
world. There are only IA weeks in
the year when cattle can Craze in the
open. In the COS and 7O's the Dane
lately in possession of his land-found