into large and new prohtable operations. In Italy
agricultural co-operators have advanced so far as suc-
cessfully and economically to manufacture their own
superphosphates, triumphantly breaking up a makers'
ring. In Switzerland, on the one hand, Agricultural
Co-operation very usefully supplies its members not only
with agricultural but also with domestic requisites — ^to
the considerable saving of their pockets ; and on the
other, through the excellent live stock improvement
societies organised by Herr von Wattenwiel, it enables
the small peasantry to dispose of their young beasts as
pedigree stock at five times the prices that such used to
fetch. What one hears from the United States almost
takes away one's breath by its truly American bigness, — •
if one could only rely upon its being truly " co-operative."
More than half the United States' Agriculture, as re-
presented in all by about 6,io_o,ooo acres, is reported to
be more or less governed by Cb-bperafioh. The Farmers'
Educational and Co-operative Union alone, a compara-
tively new organisation, with, as is claimed, about two
millions of members, possesses — according to a public
statement made by its President in May, 191 1 — 1628
warehouses mainly for storing cotton, an unspecified large
number of elevators and terminal agencies for the handling
of grain, 245 packing houses, dozens of newspapers, coal
mines, several banks, flourmills, creameries, pickle factories,
several hundred stores, an implement factory, a super-
phosphate plant, a phosphate mine, tobacco factories
and warehouses, produce exchanges, fertiliser factories,
peanut warehouses, a peanut reclear, many cotton grading
schools, co-operative life and fire insurance companies.
