Share (agriculture)

“ When, therefore, co-operative agriculture becomes practicable, land may be cultivated by associations of laborers, and thus many of the advantages associated with the system of peasant proprietorship may be secured, while at the same time the disadvantages of small farming may be avoided. ”

“ Among much other good work they have led to the formation of a large number of strictly co-operative societies for all the purposes of agriculture, except cultivation in common. Thus there are two thousand agricultural banks, besides butter factories, distilleries, associations for threshing, for sale of fruit and vegetables, for wine-making, oil-pressing, and so on, amounting altogether to some hundreds. ”

“ But I confess it seems to me that this able writer attributes more importance to that kind of cooperation, in reference to agriculture properly so called, than it deserves. None of the common farming operations require much of it. There is no particular advantage in setting a great number of people to work together in ploughing or digging or sowing the same field, or even in mowing or reaping it unless time presses. ”

“ Therefore, while many branches of manufacturing tend more and more to the collective method, the tendency in agriculture is more and more to individualism in dealing with the land itself, coupled with collective ownership in the more expensive farm machinery, in creameries, cheese factories, and the like. We are apparently at a halfway stage in this revolution of agriculture. ”

“ It is important to say agricultural co-operation and not co-operative agriculture, for in spite of some customary mutual help in farm work, in spite of several attempts, and some small successes, in co-operative farming, the actual cultivation is almost everywhere individualistic. The farmer or peasant cultivates alone, or with his family, or servants; when he co-operates with his fellows, it is to manufacture, or to market, the products of his farm, or more often to obtain the things he needs for his farming, to raise stock, to own expensive machinery in common, or insure against risks. ”

“ The selfish, commercial spirit, born of the competitive system, must soon give way for something better! The advent of a system of unselfish, co-operative farming, which proposes to unite a rational agriculture, with a scientific stirpiculture, offers opportunities for substantial progress, and a new hope for the coming race. ”

“ Now, with all the town housekeepers interested in farming, and many of the ex-clerks and shopkeepers compelled to go into it, it is evident that an amount of capital, enterprise, and invention will be attracted to agriculture, such as has no parallel in modern history.
And why should it not be so? Is it not perfectly well understood that all material comfort, happiness, and wealth come first out of the ground? What do all the nations want above everything? Food. ”

“ I think there are suggestions in our very geographical position, and a great many of them in our history and experience, that we may well desire and reach for that condition in which we shall raise our own food and in which a manufacturing class, withdrawn from agriculture and other pursuits, shall furnish the farmer a market for his surplus near to his fields and gardens, while he exchanges with the farmer the products of the shop and the loom. ”

“ They are all concerned in producing food, and depend for their remuneration on the food produced; when the one class abounds and flourishes, the others do so too; they form collectively the "agricultural interest;" they render but one service to the community by their united labours, and are paid from one common source. Even the tillers of the soil, again, when the produce is not food, but the materials of what are conmonly termed manufactures, belong in many respects to the same division in the economy of society as manufacturers. ”

“ These include agricultural societies for the improvement of the breed of cattle, a number of country banks, mostly of the Raiffeisen type, co-operative associations of rural industries, principally lace, and societies for the sale of eggs and fowls, the dressing of flax, and general agriculture. ”

“ The first industrial tendency to be noted is that toward the concentration of capital and labor in large industrial enterprises. Not only have the factory and the mill superseded the individual system of manufactures, but the growth of “bonanza farms” and the increasing number of tenant farms show the same tendency in agriculture; the trust is the resort of wholesale business houses ”

“ There is a great future for agricultural syndicates, buying and selling on co-operative terms, and distributing among their members the proper complement of agricultural machines; by their aid the small landowner of a few acres may be enabled to sustain the competition of the large model-farms; and perhaps, under new conditions, the agriculture of the rural districts may revive, surpassing those golden years between 1830 and 1880. ”

“ The often-agitated question between agriculture and commerce has, from indubitable experience, received a decision which has silenced the rivalship that once subsisted between them, and has proved, to the satisfaction of their friends, that their interests are intimately blended and interwoven. It has been found in various countries that, in proportion as commerce has flourished, land has risen in value. ”

“ The success of American agriculture is a testament to the benefits of farm-city partnerships that stretch all the way from the farmer to the consumer, with thousands of participants in between-researchers, extension agents, scientists, agribusiness companies, shippers, inspectors, processors, manufacturers, marketers and retailers, all helping to guarantee Americans a safe, abundant food supply. ”

“ Inquiry into the conditions under which organization of agriculture has been successfully carried out in other countries showed that a beginning had invariably been made with the simplest form of combination for the joint purchase of agricultural necessaries. ”

“ One man of skill and adaptability supervises the work of many. In agriculture we have but one illustration of this principle, namely, our butter and cheese factories, where one man has in charge the manufacturing of the milk of many. I think we could profitably use a similar agency in trucking, soil-handling, crop-growing, animal-feeding, and general farm-management. Furthermore, we are more in need, as the writer sees it, of this standardizing or coöperation in farm-management, than we are in the manufacture of milk products. ”

“ Fifty years ago, agriculture as a whole, comprised a vast collection of small farms and farmers. Then, the small farmer and his family, as the stable unit of suburban society, was financially and practically independent. Questions of over-production of food products, rise or fall in the price of exchange, panic in the money market, or an adverse balance of trade, disturbed them not. ”

“ Dairying and large orchards on land suitable and not of use in the general farming plan could be conducted by the community, each farmer being a stockholder. The labor performed on these cooperative undertakings should be paid for and charged to cost of production, each one who performs a share of the labor participating in the profits as near as may be. ”

“ Business co-operation among farmers is especially difficult and, while co-operation has developed quite largely—so much so that the Department of Agriculture was able to report, a year ago, a list of five thousand co-operative societies of various kinds among farmers—still it cannot be said that the farmers are co-operating industrially in a relatively large way. ”

“ The question between the large and the small systems of production as applied to agriculture—between large and small farming, the grande and the petite culture—stands, in many respects, on different grounds from the general question between great and small industrial establishments. In its social aspect, and as an element in the Distribution of Wealth, this question will occupy us hereafter: but even as a question of production, the superiority of the large system in agriculture is by no means so clearly established as in manufactures. ”

“ The owner of the land demands a share of the produce raised on or from it, and this share is claimed by him not because he helps in gaining the produce, but because he owns the raw material of the soil, and can prevent anyone from utilising it, if he so pleases. ”

“ It is thus that agriculture and manufactures are essentially allied in their interests; that unrestrained commerce is equally essential to the real and permanent interests of agriculture and manufactures; that capital and labour are equally united in their interests, whether applied to agriculture, manufactures, or commerce; that the producer and the consumer are equally united in their most essential interest, which is, that there should be cheap production. ”

“ It will be seen that share farming affords exceptional opportunities for the energetic man with a small capital. He can start [Pg 42] without sinking all his capital in rent or purchase money, and perhaps burdening himself with a heavy debt. In his own interests he has that to farm well, and indeed in most cases the terms of the agreement require conditions essential to good farming. Farmers are usually required to plough to a specified depth, and at times to prepare an area of fallow land for the succeeding crop. ”

“ The rude manufactures destined for the wants of the cultivators are worked up by village artisans, who are remunerated by land given to them rent-free to cultivate, or by fees paid to them in kind from such share of the crop as is left to the villagers by the government. This state of society, however, is not destitute of a mercantile class; composed of two divisions, grain dealers and money dealers. ”

“ Coöperative buying of farm supplies, fertilizers, machinery, spraying materials, feeds, binder twine, etc., is one of the first forms of coöperative effort ordinarily undertaken by farmers' associations, and is carried on by numerous methods. ”

“ And the private sector would take over an ever-growing proportion of industry and commerce. In the rural economy, the basis would be privately owned farms, but this would not preclude certain modern agricultural enterprises run by local or State authorities, nor the encouragement of farmers' cooperatives. ”

“ They were often ably assisted by tenant farmers, many of whom were now men with considerable capital, for whom the smaller farms were amalgamated into large ones. After the agricultural revolution of the latter half of the century, the tendency to consolidate small holdings into large farms grew apace and was looked on as a decided mark of progress. ”

“ The farmer’s own family, supplemented by the assistance of one or two permanent wage-laborers, is the coming type of agricultural coöperation, which is destined to take the place of the natural family coöperation. ”

“ These conditions called for intensive agriculture and this in turn necessitated the associated labor of men, women and even children. In summarizing, therefore, we may say that during the proprietary period the character of the surplus was such as to call for cooperation among pastoral peoples and intensive agriculturists, while among extensive agriculturists the familial or domestic system was found sufficient. ”

“ The co-operative society, started for whatever purpose originally, is an omnivorous feeder, and it exercises a magnetic influence on all agricultural activities; so that we now have societies which buy milk, manufacture and sell butter, deal in poultry and eggs, cure bacon, provide fertilizers, feeding-stuffs, seeds, and machinery for their members, and even cater for every requirement of the farmer's household. ”

“ Each co-operative farm, will become a new center of permanent wealth; a new center of social progress; of organized labor; of distribution and exchange. These new centers, by again bringing together the food and the consumer, will save millions for themselves, which under the competitive system, were thrown away in freights and commissions. As these farm centers continue to increase, they may stretch away in one unbroken chain, perhaps five hundred miles in length. ”

“ The traditional economy that centered in the farm household was independent. The ethical standards of country life recognized but small obligations to those outside the household. Farmers still idealize an individual, or rather a group, success. They entertain the hope that their farm may raise some specialty for which a better price shall be gained and by which an exceptional advantage in the market shall be possessed. The conditions of the world economy are imposing upon the farmer the necessity of co-operation. ”

“ The farm is run under the direction of experts; the soils are treated with exactly the right fertilizers for each crop, the best paying crops are raised, the best seed is used, and the best machinery. The workers of this new agricultural co-operative receive the standard wage, and they live in homes specially built for them, with all the conveniences made possible by wholesale production. Also, these co-operators live in a democratic community; they determine their own conditions of labor, being represented on the governing board, along with the experts appointed by the state. ”

“ We must import farm implements and make provision for their distribution and use. I propose that cooperatives be organized to make possible the general availability of tractors. We must import new livestock and poultry and develop varieties peculiarly suited to our own land. ”

“ The opportunity for coöperative industry is nowhere greater than in a community of farmers. Butter and cheese factories, cold storage plants and milk stations invite the coöperation of interested farmers upon the simplest possible basis of agreement. The multiplication of such enterprises is desirable, and the farmers of every community may profitably study the conditions of success. ”