The daily sentinel., 1912-06-01
POOR LAND IS MACE
TO Do WONDERS
Continued from Page IL

awakening of Denmark to the careful
use of its natural resources is due to
two thinss-the Danish sense of the
practical value of practical education
and a series of disasters.
The first disaster occurred in the
late 40's when the discovery was
made that the Danes had so impover-
ished their soil by the continuous
growing of grain that bankrupt
cy 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
otfwhatever prospects of profit the
Danes might have 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 1900 in Denmark to-day.
which fostered and made possible the
idea of cooperation.
From 1913, 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 feud-
al system of land tenures-until 1896
when Denmark lost Schleswig- Hol-
stein to Prussia, the Danes struggled
against terribly adverse circum-
stances, and then, under the impetus
which the high schools had given
them, they began to cooperate. In
the high schools. which are open only
to men over the age of twenty years,
the Danish farmers learned to trust
one another; they also learned that
with impoverished land and no cap
italthey could not compete there with
the great landowners who were be-
ginning to sell great quantities of
butter and hogs to England and Ger
many.
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
market for fresh butter and the colo
nial market for canned butter ii was
necessary that they have capital; 1t
was necessary that their product be
the same in quantity all the year and
always the same in quality. To
standardiZe 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 CO.
operative societies.
This movement, fostered, as
said, by Bishop Grundtwig's high
schools, began by the organization
of small societies of farmers of vari-
GUS districts. In these each man was
allowed one vote; but he guaranteed
that he would supply to the cooper
atiYe creamery just so many pounds
of butter fat-butter fat being the
commodity in which he dealt-and
make himself liable independently,
plus the unlimited liability of the CO.
operative society to the government
bank for the amount of the capital
borrowed. The province of the bank
in this transaction is not the main
thing to be considered. The bank
must make a fair profit, but the bank
really exists for the benefit of the
farmers through the cooperative so
cieties, 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