///9 
 
 Souchon 
 
 Cooperation of Production and 
 Sale in French Agriculture
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 1 
 
 GIFT
 
 Cooperation 
 of Production and Sale 
 in French Agriculture 
 
 r 
 
 BY 
 
 A. SOUCHON 
 
 Professeur a la Faculte de Droit de Paris, 
 
 EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE 
 
 DE SAN FRANCISCO 
 1915
 
 Cooperation 
 
 of Production and Sale 
 
 in French Agriculture
 
 Cooperation 
 
 of Production and Sale 
 
 in French Agriculture 
 
 B Y 
 
 A. SOUCHON 
 
 Profusseur ;i la I'aculte de Droit de Pari 
 
 EX POSl T 1 (3N i; N I V E R S K 1. 1. K 
 
 DE SAN FRANCISCO
 
 rssii 
 
 C(JOl»EllATliL\ OF PIIODLCTION XM SALE IN 
 FRENCH AGRrClMLKE 
 
 By A. SOUCHOiN 
 
 Professeur a la Faculte de Droit de Paris. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Other treatise have already been devoted by 
 us wliolly or in part to (juestions of agricul- 
 tural cooperation. When studying- agricultural 
 societies we showed them making purchases in 
 common lor their members. That is nothin"- but 
 cooperation of consumption of objects necessary 
 to agricultural exploitation, in this form of cooper- 
 ation the societies have even obtained a success 
 so great that they have left nothing to be done 
 outside them — or very nearly so. Also, in a 
 study of agricultural cooperation, it is useless to 
 reserve a particular place for cooperative societies 
 for consumption, and it is suflicient here to refer 
 the reader to the treatise on agricultural societies. 
 A passing mention should be made, however, of 
 the societies of panilication, real cooperative 
 bakeries. Most of them are found in the West of 
 n. 1 
 
 1 OO/f ocro
 
 France and number more than five hundred. Cer- 
 tain of these bakeries have their own cooperative 
 mill, but this is more the exception. Sometimes in 
 our villages there are also cooperative grocery 
 stores. But a study of them would lead us too far 
 from veritable agricultural associations. There is, 
 in fact, nothing professional in the purchase of 
 sugar or similar ingredients. 
 
 In our study of Credit we have examined quite 
 another form of cooperation, wliat is known as mu- 
 tual credit being no other than cooperative credit. 
 
 And lastly, in the treatise on agricultural insu- 
 rance societies, we have also studied questions ot 
 cooperation, mutual aid insurance also being no 
 other, when everything is taken into account, than 
 a sort of cooperation for protection against divers 
 risks. 
 
 To avoid repetition, the field before us when we 
 wish to speak of cooperation in French agriculture 
 necessarily is limited to what concerns, on one 
 hand, cooperation of production and, on the other 
 hand, the sale and transformation of agricultural 
 produce. 
 
 COOPERATION IN AGRICULTURAL 
 PRODUCTION 
 
 We have no cooperation of cultivation ; nothing 
 comparable to the affitanze collective of the Ita-
 
 — 3 — 
 
 lians, nor to the cooperative villag"es of Australia, 
 nor to the numerous communistic attempts made 
 in the United States. To be exact, it should he said 
 that one might find in France a few half-hearted 
 attempt's at cooperation in cultivation. Mention has 
 often heen made of the village of Tirman, in 
 Algeria, hut here we have a project rather than a 
 realization. M. Tardy in his reports on agricultural 
 cooperation has also shown the existence of a 
 cooperative farm at La Faussette, in the county of 
 Var. There are also in the South a few cooperative 
 wine makers who have become joint proprietors 
 of vineyards. But all this amounts to very little 
 and constitutes nothing more than a mere social 
 bagatelle. It is not of sufficient importance to dwell 
 on here. 
 
 It should be remarked that in our ancient rural 
 economy cultivation in common occupied a very 
 important place. This was tiie result of our old 
 peasant communities and particularly of the 
 Societes Taisibles, so called because they resulted 
 from a tacit understanding between their members 
 and no juridical act preceded their formation. I'he 
 origin of these peasant communities dates back to 
 the early Middle Ages. They were very numerous 
 throughout the whole of France, grouping more 
 than one family, and very often including hl'ty to 
 two hundred persons sometimes with no ties ol 
 relationship. For the most part these communities 
 worked ground iianded over to them by the nobles
 
 _ 4 — 
 
 on which to raise produce to pay dues to tliose 
 nobles. They were thus more or less comparable 
 to societies working land on lease. Sometimes, 
 too, thev w'ere themselves owners. The soil was 
 worked in common. All lived together, « eating 
 from the same dishes and warmed by the same 
 hearth ». Similar customs were maintained so 
 long as the feudal dues bore heavily on our rural 
 population and so long as poverty gave a parti- 
 cular interest to forms of economy resulting from 
 life in common. The disaggregation of our peasant 
 communities commenced in the XVI century. On 
 the eve of the Revolution these communities had 
 almost entirely disappeared. In the XIX century 
 no more than a few traces remained of them, 
 notably in Auvergne and in the Pyrenees. This is 
 therefore an institution which we must consider as 
 belonging entirely to the past. But to point it out 
 was useful, first because it is characteristic of our 
 France of ancient days, and next because it shows 
 us that cooperation in cultivation, put forward as 
 ultra-modern, is in reality only a new beginning 
 under modified aspects of a very old institution. 
 
 It must be remarked also that if we have no co- 
 operative societies doing all the work of cultivation 
 in common, certain of our associations can have 
 an influence on this work of cultivation, and some- 
 times even assume a part of it. 
 
 It is thus in the first place that numbers of 
 societies, in view only of the sale and transforma-
 
 — 5 — 
 
 tion of agricultural produce, are brought to impose 
 certain rules of exploitation and demand their 
 observance by their members. The best example in 
 this is furnished by the cooperative butter works. 
 We shall see the important place that these coopera- 
 tives fill in the rural economy of certain regions 
 of France ; and we shall have occasion to speak of 
 their working in some detail. We may say here 
 that the societies compel their members to choose 
 fodder for their animals in a precise and defined 
 fashion, and tiiat they lay down rules as to the way 
 the stables should be kept. In certain foreign coun- 
 tries, notably in Denmark, greater progress along 
 these lines has been made than with us, and every- 
 thing concerning the care of cattle is regulated 
 with minuteness by the cooperative societies there. 
 It is true this is not cultivative cooperation, but it 
 is alreadv nearly approaching it, since the associa- 
 tions go so far as to exercise authority over the 
 manner of exploitation of the soil, of which cattle 
 rearing is but a special form. 
 
 Very often, too, we come across cooperative 
 societies which, whilst not formed with a view to 
 cultivation, have yet another aim than tlie sale or 
 transformation of agricultural produce. Their idea 
 is to aid the work of cultivation by a common elFort 
 altliough remaining in its whole individual. Tiie 
 best examples we can give here are those of coopera- 
 tives for the use in common of agricultural imple- 
 ments, societies for plougiiing by steam or plectri-
 
 — 6 — 
 
 city, and cooperatives for cattle rearing and 
 pasturage. None of these forms of association has 
 yet reached a considerable development in our 
 country. With allofthem we are traversing a period 
 of trials. But we can already claim encouraging 
 results of a nature to augur well for the near fu- 
 ture. 
 
 First as regards the utilization in common of 
 agricultural implements; this is the more often 
 undertaken in our country by our agricultural so- 
 cieties, and special cooperatives for this are rare. 
 However, there are about twenty. Most are coopera- 
 tive societies for threshing. They are found through- 
 out France, and one could not speak of their loca- 
 lization. There are also societies w^hose object is 
 the purchase and collective utilization of all kinds 
 of agricultural maciiinery. We can notably cite 
 that of Beaurepaire, Isere, tiiat of Cheny de Quenne 
 and Willemer, Yonne. In the ordinary way these 
 cooperatives, after having purchased the machi- 
 nery, place it at the disposal of each of their mem- 
 bers in turn. There is thus successive use much 
 more than collective utilization. But in the course 
 of the last few years attempts have been made to 
 proceed otherwise by asking members to work 
 together with the machinery, passing successively 
 over the land of each. This brings us nearer to 
 cultivation in common. Further, we have here a 
 particularly tempting procedure in a country like 
 France, where not onlv are there manv small hoi-
 
 dings, but a number of allotments parcelled up into 
 strips whicliare not contiguous. Sucli a splitting up 
 of properties renders the employment of machinery 
 difticult, but this would be singularly facilitated 
 the day that a united organization should permit 
 of not stopping at the limits of each property. 
 
 Societies for steam ploughing- are only a varia- 
 tion of cooperatives for the collective utilization of 
 agricultural implements, but they present a parti- 
 cular interest by reason of the very importance of 
 the mechanism set in motion by the association. 
 Societies for steam ploughing were born at the 
 same time of scarcity of manual labour and the 
 impossibility for each owner to have his own steam 
 plough. It is already some years since they appeared 
 in the region of Paris, notably in the Soissons dis- 
 tricts and the Oise. But in the beginning these were 
 not veritable cooperatives, and we were rather face 
 to face with commercial companies buying a steam 
 plough and letting it out on hire to agriculturists. 
 In practice the shareholders of the company were 
 those who expected to use the machinery. Coopera- 
 tion in embryo thereby already appeared. At the 
 present time things have gone much further, and 
 in the neighboui'hood surrounding Senlis there are 
 regular cooperatives for steam ploughing. The dif- 
 ference compared w ith the commercial companies 
 already mentioned is in the fact that there are no 
 shareholders, and that no sort of proht has to be 
 raised from the cultivators using the machine in
 
 — 8 — 
 
 common. In regard to electricity, it is no log'er a 
 question of ploup:hing. This does not mean that the 
 employment of electric force for running agricul- 
 tural machines in our fields is unknown to us, but 
 the method is little used. On the other hand, there 
 are in our regions of large farms, particularly 
 around Paris, numbers of undertakings possessing 
 very complicated machinery worked by electricity. 
 Also, the creation of cooperatives having for object 
 the procuring of electric energy for their members 
 has often been thought of. Attempts are being made 
 to form such in the counties of Aube, Aisne and 
 Eure-et-Loir. They are of too recent date to permit 
 any definite forecast as to their success. 
 
 There remain to be considered cattle rearing and 
 pasturage in common. In another treatise we have 
 already spoken of societies for cattle rearing. They 
 are none other than real cooperative societies for 
 a particular form of agricultural exploitation. They 
 do not go so far as cultivation, but they lay down 
 clearly defmied regulations for the choice of repro- 
 ducing animals and the care to be given to their 
 young. 
 
 Pasturage in common is frequent in mountainous 
 districts under an administrative form, in this sense 
 that a great number of communes in the Alps and 
 in the Pyrenees possess widely extended pasture 
 lands on which all the inhabitants can send their 
 cattle to graze. Looked at closely, this is like an 
 association embracing the whole village, and the
 
 — 9 — 
 
 legal aspect of things does not greatly mask the 
 reality. In certain mountainous regions wliere the 
 communes have not so widely entended pasture 
 lands, notably in the East of France on the slopes 
 of the Jura, the inhabitants trv sometimes to re- 
 medy the absence of communal pasturag:e by an 
 effort of association. They hire land on to which tiie 
 members have the right to send all their cattle 
 togetiier. Attempts have even been made at common 
 possession of tlie animals. 
 
 COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES 
 
 FOR THE SALE AND TRANSFORMATION 
 
 OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE 
 
 After having thus treated of cooperatives of pro- 
 duction, we come to associations for the object of 
 sale, and sometimes transformation, of agricultural 
 produce. The greater part of these associations are 
 of recent origin. However, associations specializing 
 in cheese have existed since a very long- time in 
 the Jura and have created the world-wide reputa- 
 tion of certain of their products, notably Gruyere. 
 It is g:enerally stated that these societies already 
 existed in the XU century. They were neither 
 more nor less than veritable cooperatives for the 
 manufacture of cheese. Each of the members 
 brought his siiare of milk, the cheese was made by 
 the society, and the produce was shared among all
 
 — 10 — 
 
 according" to different rules and pro rata to the 
 quantities of millv supplied by each. 
 
 Numbers of these societies exist to tliis day, but 
 no longer ^Yith the same ciiaracteristics. A sort of 
 regression has taken place in their cooperative 
 practice. They are are now nothing but commercial 
 companies working for peasants who bring milk 
 to them, but claiming from them a large profit, 
 like any ordinary intermediaries. But this does 
 not mean that there is no more cooperation. It 
 subsists in the fact that the producers of the milk 
 untite to bring quantities of milk in common to the 
 companies. We shall come across these associa- 
 tions again when speaking of the present develop- 
 ment of cooperatives for the sale and transformation 
 of agricultural produce. 
 
 In studying' this development we should remark 
 that cooperative associations of sale and transfor- 
 mation most numerous in our country are found 
 precisely in milk, butter and cheese regions. After 
 these, it is among societies of vinification, or « co- 
 operatives cellars », that we find the most important 
 groups. There are also other very diverse coopera- 
 tives of which we should speak. 
 
 First as regards the milk industrv, we find our- 
 selves in face of associations having for object the 
 sale of milk without any transformation, neither 
 into butter nor cheese. There are countries where 
 such associations have played a considerable role. 
 We know the history of the milk wars around cer-
 
 — 11 — 
 
 tain lar^e German towns, particularly Berlin and 
 Munich. These milk wars were provoked by the 
 coalitions of peasants of the surrounding neigh- 
 bourhood trying to create together a monopoly on 
 the urban market, and making the consumer pay 
 high prices, thanks to the power of this monopoly. 
 Such combinations came up against the resistance 
 of free commerce. They were always worsted and 
 broken up. In France we have never experienced 
 these milk « kartells ». IJut during these last years 
 a few cooperative societies have been formed for 
 the sale of milk in the neighbourhood of Paris, par- 
 ticularly in the Oise. Their aim was to rescue the 
 small producers from the domination of very strongly 
 organized commercial companies which bought the 
 milk very cheap of the peasants to sell it in the capi- 
 tal at very high prolits. Naturally these coopera- 
 tive societies for the sale of milk have had to struggle 
 against the hostility of the companies from whose 
 power they wished to free the cultivators. Never- 
 theless they have succeeded, and the ({uantity of 
 milk that they sell in Paris is estimated at about 
 three million litres (5,250,000 pints) a year. This 
 is still very little compare<l with the total consump- 
 tion. It does not seem either that here the coopera- 
 tive has procured great profits for its adherents. 
 Its working expenses are considerable, and, taking 
 everything in to account, the producers make almost 
 as much by working through the intermediary of 
 the commercial companies.
 
 — 13 — 
 
 A few cooperatives for the sale of miJk have also 
 been formed in the South of France to supply 
 Nice and Monaco. Tiiere ag'ain we have, it seems, 
 to record a success without very great advan- 
 tages. 
 
 Next come the cooperatives for the making of 
 cheese. We have already said how ancient they 
 are in certain regions of France. We know also 
 that they have remained numerous. There are at 
 present about two thousand of them. Most are 
 found in the Jura, while many others are in Ain 
 and even in Savoy. These small associations do 
 not exist isolated one from another ; and larger 
 societies of cheese makers group together those of a 
 same district. We would notably cite the Syndicat de 
 Gers, that of Saint-Julien (Haute-Savoie) and of 
 Annecy, which tends to become a sort of general 
 society of all the cheese makers of the South-East. 
 Such groups can have a very beneficial inlluence. 
 We have already said that in the cheese industry there 
 is a sort of regression in cooperative practice. The 
 societies can try to bring it back towards the most 
 complete type of association, which is that of the past. 
 This would he very desirable for the producers, for 
 when, in fact, they sell their milk to cheese making 
 concerns working for their own account, all kinds 
 of manoeuvres and understandings to bring down 
 the price of milk are to be feared. Nothing of the 
 sort would have to be feared if, conforming to old 
 traditions, the cheese making institutions worked
 
 .1 o 
 
 — Jo — 
 
 for the peasants without making a proOt out of 
 them. It is more interesting to examine the butter 
 works. We know how cooperatives of this sort 
 have multiplied in numbers of countries and what 
 an important position they occupy, notably in 
 Danish agriculture. Their success is due above 
 all to a cause of a technical order, viz., the inven- 
 tion of centrifugal machines. These machines are 
 too large to allow of each small cultivator possess- 
 ing his own. It was therefore necessary for these 
 small owners either to renounce technical progress 
 or unite together to obtain apparatus in common. 
 In our country the first butter cooperatives appear- 
 ed about 1800. This was in the West, and parti- 
 cularly in the Gharentes and Poitou. These coun- 
 ties were suffering from an agricultural crisis of a 
 particular nature. Our Charentais districts, cele- 
 brated for their spirits, owed their prosperity for a 
 long time to the vine. When the epidemic of phyl- 
 loxera appeared it looked as if their future was for 
 ever compromised. Our Languedoc, it is true, was 
 about to show that this scourge could be fought 
 against by American roots. But in the South the 
 reconstitution of the vines was most often made 
 with many changes in the vineyard grounds. In a 
 general wav, the vine has tended to descend from 
 the dry and stony hill-sides towards the damp 
 plains. The wine has gained in quantity, but it is 
 another question as regards the (juality. The con- 
 ditions of the soil in the Gharentes did not lend 
 
 \
 
 — 14 — 
 
 themselves to such changes, and the owners in the 
 niajority of cases gave- up vine growing altogether 
 and turned their entire attention to milk producing. 
 But it was necessary to ensure the best chances oi 
 success, and to attain this end the first butter 
 cooperatives were created. They made Lheir appea- 
 rance in Saintonge. From there they rapidly spread 
 to all the neighbouring districts. Today we can 
 count l2o in the West of France. They have united 
 in a central association whose action extends over 
 the counties of Charente-Inferieure, Deux-Sevres, 
 Gharente, Vendee, Vienne, Indre, Indre-et-Loire 
 and Loire-Inferieure. 
 
 Most of the members are very small landlords. 
 But they have become rich in an extraordinary 
 fashion, thanks to the success of the cooperatives, 
 which find in the Paris markets a fine outlet, their 
 produce being much sought after there. It has been 
 calculated that the action of the cooperatives has 
 at least doubled the productive money value of each 
 milch-cow" to the profit of its owner. 
 
 The mechanism of the dairy cooperatives is very 
 simple. They first have to make an effort to bring 
 together a sufficient number of owners to be able 
 to utilize centrifuge machinery. Next they must 
 possess the necessary capital to acquire the ma- 
 chines. To obtain them the cooperative may make 
 an appeal to its members. It can also borrow, and 
 this borrowing: is facilitated bv the law^ of December 
 29th, 1906, of which we have already spoken in
 
 O — 
 
 the treatise on credit. When it has been possible 
 to form the cooperative dairy in its personal and 
 material elements, there remains its daily working 
 to be ensured. The first rule is that all the mem- 
 bers should bring all their milk to the cooperative. 
 What is necessary for their own consumption and 
 that of their families is, ho^^ever, left for them. 
 Sometimes all the milk of Sunday is left to them, 
 the centrifuge machines not working on that day. 
 Particular precautions are taken so that the sliare 
 brought by each member shall be conveyed under 
 the best conditions. It is forbidden, for example, 
 to supply milk from a sick cow or from one having 
 calved since less than a week. Very strict pre- 
 scriptions are also enforced relative to the purity of 
 the milk and the cleanliness of the receptacles. 
 Butter is sold by the agents of the cooperative, and 
 the sale price, after deduction of costs, is shared 
 pro rata to the quantities of milk brought by each 
 member. It is not only a question of proportion as 
 to quantity. The quality is also taken into account, 
 whicii can be appreciated in an exact manner, 
 thanks to apparatus for measuring the richness of 
 the milk in cream. 
 
 There jemains a delicate question, viz., that of 
 butter-milk. For its better employment numbers 
 of cooperatives create pigstys. This generally is a 
 source of serious proht ; but complications in admi- 
 nistration may become fairly numerous. In order 
 to avoid them some cooperatives, after having con-
 
 — 16 — 
 
 structed a pigsty, let it out on condition that the 
 liolder sliall take all their butter-milk. Other soci- 
 ties merely give back the butter-milk to their 
 members. 
 
 There are cooperative dairies not only in Cha- 
 rante and Poitou. A fair number are also found in 
 Thierache, a district situated in the county of Aisne. 
 There are there about thirty of these cooperatives. 
 Like the societies of the West, they have their 
 federation. Since the last few years butter coopera- 
 tives have appeared also in Normandy and even 
 in Brittany, where they have, it would seem, a 
 great future before them. 
 
 These associations of diverse regions are about 
 of the same type as those of the Charentes and 
 Poitou. There are sometimes differences in the 
 juridical structure. Thus, for example, the coopera- 
 tives of the West ordinarily take on a civil form. 
 On the contrary, those of Thierache take on more 
 a commercial form. We could not, however, go 
 further into precisions without entering on ques- 
 tions of the laws of our land which would take us 
 too far from the subject under examination. 
 
 After the dairies and butter works, it is among 
 cellar cooperatives that we find the most important 
 group of associations in view of the sale or trans- 
 formation of agricultural produce. The cause of the 
 cooperative movement is liere of the same order 
 as for the dairies, and must be looked for on the 
 technical side. The expenses of the wine vault vvith
 
 — 17 — 
 
 all its machinery are today too great for small pro- 
 prietors, and numbers among them are brought to 
 group themselves togetlier in spile of many indivi- 
 dual dissensions. 
 
 . In cooperative cellars wine is made in common. 
 Similar associations are found todav in all our 
 great vinicultural regions. Thf oldest of these 
 associations appears to be that of Damerv, in 
 Champagne, which was founded about 1890. Its 
 history is bound up with a whole movement of the 
 vine-growers against the great outside commerce. 
 This history was very varied and terminated in a 
 check. But it must not be concluded from that 
 that the idea of cooperation has been abandoned in 
 our wine-growing districts of Cdiampagne. At the 
 present moment we find, on the contrary, a whole 
 growth of associations for wine producing in the 
 Marne. These are societies with a small number 
 of members, without great forces of capital, and 
 whose role in consequence is very limited, but they 
 have nearly all an especially catholic character. 
 There are also a h'w \\ ine making cooperatives in 
 Bourgogne, in Indre-et-Loire, in the Jura, and 
 even in the Puy-de-D6me. It is especially to Lan- 
 guedoc, however, that we have to look for the dis- 
 trict par excellence of cooperative cellars. There 
 are about thirty in the counties of Herault, Gard, 
 Bouches-du-Rhone, Var and Aude. Certain of these 
 associations are celebrate<l, notably that of the 
 Free Viniculturists of Maraussan, llriault. This 
 II. 2
 
 — 18 — 
 
 society was founded in 1902, and lias strong-ly 
 Socialist tendencies. But outside its propaganda in 
 the domaine of ideas, its economic action is impor- 
 tant. The members number more than 300, it sells 
 over a million francs worth of wine per annum, 
 and its cooperative character is particularly marked, 
 since the work of the association extends, as we 
 have already seen, even to the cultivation of the 
 vine. 
 
 The wine making cooperatives are very far from 
 being all modelled on the same plan, but there is 
 a type which can be considered as the most 
 general. 
 
 As for dairy cooperatives, the association begins 
 to work after the uniting together of a sufficient 
 number of members, and when, thanks either to 
 the sums they subscribe or to loans raised, a 
 fairly large capital is ensured. Each member has 
 to look after gathering in his grapes and the 
 bringing of them to the cooperative cellar. Their 
 grapes, further, are only accepted if they appear 
 of sufficiently good quality not to compromise the 
 wine making of the concern. This quality is, like 
 the quantity, mentioned with care on the receipt 
 handed to the member, which constitutes his credit 
 voucher against the cooperative. It is then the 
 business of the cooperative, not only to proceed 
 with the processes of making the wine, but also 
 to sell it under the conditions which it shall judge 
 best. The price obtained by sale is next shared
 
 — 19 — 
 
 pro rata to the grapes supplied by each member, 
 after deduction of the expenses incurred. Generally 
 the cooperative cellars arrange to pay at least part 
 on account to their members before having received 
 payment for the sale. To this end all sorts of com- 
 binations for obtaining- credit from the Mutual Aid 
 Societies have been thoug-ht of. 
 
 The advantag-es of cooperation in wine making 
 are considerable. First of all, tiie wine is better 
 than if made by each separate grower, who very 
 likely might not have sufficient utensils. Next, the 
 cooperative character is particularly reassuring for 
 customers. They willingly go to associations, from 
 whom they fear no fraud. There is in that such a 
 good element of advertisement that numbers of 
 owners and merchants try to pass themselves oft" 
 surreptitiously as the representatives of a coopera- 
 tive society. Lastly, thanks to cooperation, vini- 
 culturists are not obliged to sell at unfavourable 
 moments and under conditions perhaps disastrous. 
 
 Also, it is astonishing that vinicultural coopera- 
 tion is not more developed in a country like ours. 
 It is much more advanced in certain other countries, 
 notably in the valley of the Aar, where it has ren- 
 dered inappreciable services. 
 
 In the course of the last few years our vinicultu- 
 rists have greatly suftered. They have experienced 
 a crisis of bad sales of such intensity that it was to 
 be wondered if the cultivation of the vine would 
 remain possible. Today prices have gone up. For
 
 — 20 — 
 
 how long will this last? None can predict. But 
 good fortune soon makes our southern population 
 forget the resolutions of hard times. Then, all the 
 means capable of circumventing these bad sales 
 were sought, and it looked as if the viniculturists 
 were ready to listen to the economists preaching- 
 cooperation. It is to be feared, however, that their 
 lessons will not be remembered so long as the 
 pinch of misfortune does not come again. 
 
 After the dairy cooperatives and the cellar coope- 
 ratives, there are other associations that we must 
 speak of exercising their activity in the sale and 
 transformation of a great number of diverse pro- 
 ducts. 
 
 Mention should first be made of the potato co- 
 operatives. It is in the county of the Vosges that we 
 have to look for tiiem, where they number about 
 thirty. The first appeared in 1902 and 1903. They 
 were born of a reaction of the agriculturists against 
 commercial concerns paying a quite insufficient 
 price for the potatoes to be used for making potato 
 flour. Numbers of these associations were conceiv- 
 ed on a somewhat special type, in the sense that 
 the right of each member to bring potatoes to the 
 cooperative is measured by the importance of his 
 subscription to the capital of the society. A sub- 
 scription of one hundred francs (twenty dollars), 
 for example, allows the member to bring three 
 thousand kilogrammes (6C16.5 lbs) to the coopera- 
 tive. The combination is ingenious, and is, in fact.
 
 — 21 — 
 
 of a nature easily to ensure the constitution of the 
 capital of a society. It is very advantageous for 
 the cultivators to deliver their potatoes to the co- 
 operative instead of selling them to commercial 
 concerns. The realization by the members, thanks 
 to these cooperatives, of a profit of 100 per cent lias 
 often been spoken of. It must be noted, too, that 
 the advantage is not only for those united by co- 
 operation. All the cultivators of the district benefit 
 by an elfort whose result is to raise the price of 
 potatoes all round. 
 
 In the Vosges tiiere is a Union of the Coopera- 
 tive Potato Flour Societies, and this union has done 
 much to increase the number of local associations. 
 Some attemps have been made, and some succes- 
 ses of the same order achieved, in other regions 
 of France. Hut it is a matter for wonder that the 
 example of the Vosges has not been more fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 Other associations equally susceptible of render- 
 ing important services are the cooperative oil 
 works. The movement which created them was 
 born of technical necessities which came into being 
 with Ihe perfecting of oil mills. This movement 
 dates from about 1905. By the nature of things it is 
 localized to the districts bordering the Mediterra- 
 nean, the only region in France producing olives. 
 There are about twenty cooperative olive oil 
 works spread throughout the counties of Alpes- 
 Mai-itimes, Var, and Jiouches-du-Hhone. The re-
 
 — -22 — 
 
 suits obtained appear to have been considerable. 
 It may be estimated \Yithout exaggeration that, 
 thanks to the cooperatives, the owners of olive 
 trees have succeeded in increasing their revenue 
 by 25 to 30 per cent. 
 
 When next we speak of fruit, vegetables and 
 llowers, we must first remember tliat for these 
 products the societies in more than one instance 
 make their sales direct in common, without having 
 recourse to the creation of a cooperative society. 
 There are, however, some of these cooperatives, 
 notably in the counties of tlie South, either for the 
 making- up of preserves of fruit and vegetables or 
 for flowers, as for example at Vallauris, where 
 there is a cooperative distillery for making essence 
 of orange blossom. 
 
 We must also mention a few cooperative mills, 
 some distilleries, and cooperatives for resin. The 
 cooperative mills are few in number, at least if 
 we wish to speak of those not forming part of a 
 cooperative bakery. There are no more than three 
 or four in the whole of France. Of the distilleries 
 there are about a dozen, most of them in the South 
 and a few in the district of the Gharentes or in 
 Normandy. As to the resin cooperatives, we can- 
 not look for these elsewhere than in the Landes, the 
 only ones in our country giving a considerable 
 place to the exploitation of maritime pines. It was 
 believed for a time at the end of the XIX century 
 that in this region of the Landes the cooperative
 
 — 28 — 
 
 movement was going to take on considerable pro- 
 portions, and its development would have been of 
 a nature to attenuate the great dilTiculties which 
 have arisen since the last three years between the 
 resin workers and their employers. But these 
 resin workers lor the most part are not in a posi- 
 tion to be sufficiently wide-awake members of a 
 cooperative association. 
 
 In the preceding enumeration w <• certainly have 
 not exhausted the whole list of our coopera- 
 tive societies for the sale and transformation of 
 agricultural produce, and we have liad to conhne 
 ourselves to speaking of the most important forms, 
 neglecting tbose types represented only by one or 
 two associations. Thus in the Vosges, at Epinal, 
 we have a mining cooperative, at Rillieux, in Ain, 
 a sauerkraut cooperative, and at IVfarigny, in 
 Seine-et-Oise, an association for the manufacture 
 of suuar, not the onlv one, but the others seem 
 to have had much less success. 
 
 When after sucii an inventory we seek to know^ 
 what the tola! figure of our cooperative associa- 
 tions of agricultural produce may be, this figure 
 appears difUcult to fix. There are no official sta- 
 tistics to go by. We should commit a grave error 
 if we based our calculations on the publications of 
 the service of Agricultural Credit. In them it is 
 only a question of the cooperative societies having 
 made appeal for long term credit loans, such as 
 we know them allowed for bv the law of 1906.
 
 — -24 — 
 
 Bui there are numbers of societies wliicli liave been 
 founded and are in full swing without having had 
 recourse to such loans. 
 
 It is not impossible to give an approximate 
 total, and we must be near the truth when we 
 speak for all France of 2,300 to 2,400 cooperative 
 associations devoted to the sale of agricultural pro- 
 duce or its transformation. It is to be noted, fur- 
 ther, that this total is obtained thanks only to the 
 very great number of cheese making cooperatives, 
 which amount to nearly 2,000. We would add 
 that all these cooperative societies do not exist 
 isolated one from another. There are in the first 
 place often special federations. We have already 
 come across those connected with dairy coopera- 
 tives in the Charentes and Poitou, those also of 
 Thierache, and then for potato flour works that of 
 the Vosges. 
 
 Further, there is in France since a few years a 
 Federation Nationale des Societes Cooperatives 
 Agricoles. This federation, as its name implies, 
 has great ambitions, and hopes one day to unite 
 all the societies of agricultural production, what- 
 ever their specialization may be. The Federation 
 Nationale is of recent origin. It is not therefore 
 surprising to see that it has not yet attained its 
 end. It numbers hardly more than 200 societies, 
 of which one group is composed of about a hundred 
 dairy societies of Poitou. 
 
 The results which we have just indicated, when
 
 ^K 
 
 we remember the number of our agricultural socie- 
 ties and credit associations, as well as agricultural 
 mutual aid insurance funds, can appear relatively 
 little important. 
 
 A comparison with other countries is no more 
 favourable to our land as regards agricultural co- 
 operation. Without speaking of Denmark, whose 
 marvellous cooperatives are well known to all, 
 we are equally rather far behind Germany. Espe- 
 cially in the East, Germany has been able to mul- 
 tiply the dairy and butter works more than we have. 
 Also, Germany has experimented with types of agri- 
 cultural cooper-atives almost unknown in France. 
 The « Kornliaiiser », notablv, have no equivalent 
 in our country. There were, however, moments at 
 the end of the XIX century and at the beginning 
 of the XX century when Germany appeared to 
 found great hopes on the cooperative sale of wheat, 
 and wlien tbat country even seemed to believe that 
 it would be an excellent remedy against bad sales 
 of cereals. Today these souvenirs seem a long way 
 off. The « Kornhaiiser » no longer have the same 
 vogue. Numbers of them did not succeed. Com- 
 merce in wheat carries with it elements of specu- 
 lation which render it perilous, and severe lessons 
 have brought this fact home to more than one 
 director of a cooperative store. And again, and 
 tiiis is important, bad times are past. In Germany, 
 as in France, cereals have during the last few 
 years been easily sold at remunerative prices. The
 
 — 26 — 
 
 attempts at cooperation were prompted by the 
 i'all in prices, it was difficult for these attempts 
 to survive the rise. Nevertheless, we should 
 remember that they constituted very interesting 
 efforts that we have hardly been able to imitate. 
 About the year 1900 there had been attempts to 
 create a few cooperatives for the sale of wheat in 
 France. One such attempt was made at Roche- 
 sur-Von and another at Bayeulle. Their success 
 does not appear to have been great. 
 
 What is the reason for these mediocre results in 
 our country ? 
 
 It has often been put down to incompleteness in 
 our legislation. This reproach seems to us exagger- 
 ated. It is true that, different to many other coun- 
 tries, we have no special law for regulating the 
 statutes of cooperative societies ; and this is a gap 
 which it has been promised by our legislative sys- 
 tem shall be filled. But its importance must not 
 be exaggerated. Our common law on Societies, 
 with the Civil Code on one side and on the other 
 the law of 1867 on commercial companies, is 
 supple enough to permit of multiple combinations. 
 Thus by divers means situations and needs which 
 are not all the same can be met. Is it certain that 
 one would succeed in doing this so well after the 
 passing of a law governing all cooperative societies 
 with perhaps too much uniformity? Again, it must 
 not be forgotten how the State has done better than 
 make a law on their form. It has aided agricultu-
 
 27 
 
 ral cooperative societies with pecuniary iielp, and 
 the law of December 29th, 1906, with its long 
 term credit at very low interest, is nothing less 
 than subvention, a little indirect but very effective. 
 It is not then in negligence on the part of the State 
 that reasons must be sought for tiie small devel- 
 opment of oui" agricultural cooperatives. Neither 
 is it in the pretended individualism of our peasant 
 ry. This individualism lias been so much and for 
 so long talked about that it reappears every time 
 that in matters of agricultural association there 
 is any inertia to be regretted. But if the peasants 
 of France were, as is believed, so hostile to group- 
 ing themselves together we should have neither 
 our thousands of societies nor our agricultural 
 insurance associations, nor our credit funds. We 
 must therefore seek elsewiiere, asking why, on 
 the one hand, there are less cooperatives than other 
 agricultural associations, and, on the other hand, 
 what are the causes of our insufficiency relatively 
 to foreign countries. 
 
 It is easy to reply to the first of these two ques- 
 tions. We understand readily that cooperation of 
 production and of sale is more difficult to carry 
 on than any other form of association. It is the 
 only one, in fact, entailing commerce with the 
 outer world which has to be undertaken with all 
 tlie activity, ability and boldness, as well as with 
 all the prudence, which the word implies. When 
 an individual has capacities for conducting commer-
 
 — 28 — 
 
 cial affairs, it would be singular if his ambition 
 should be only to manage a cooperative and put 
 his capabilities at the service of others, almost 
 without profit of any sort for himself. It is easy to 
 find directors of societies, seduced by the impor- 
 tance of the role they are called upon to fill. 
 Nothing- is more simple than the working of a small 
 credit fund or mutual aid insurance organization. 
 Many men can consecrate their efforts to it without 
 neglecting anything of their own affairs. For a sale 
 cooperative organization it is quite otherwise. It 
 is therefore to be feared that the best do not wish 
 to devote themselves to it and that the others have 
 not the capacities necessary to do so. There are 
 also difficulties of anotlier order. These arise from 
 the fact that among all these agricultural associa- 
 tions the cooperatives for sale alone try to group 
 together interests among which there is natural 
 opposition. Agriculturists who insure together or 
 those who unite their forces of credit are competi- 
 tors neither in insurance nor in credit. But culti- 
 vators who sell their produce are all competitiors 
 of each other in this work of sale. In association 
 they must be made to forget this, which is not 
 always easy. When the cooperative sells for all, 
 each thinks that he could have sold better on his 
 own account, or, when the association fixes the 
 value of the produce brought to it for sale in com- 
 mon, each member makes his own private estima- 
 tion of value, and finds his neighbour more favor-
 
 — i9 — 
 
 ed than he. It is in vain that] attempts will he 
 made to avoid recriminations of this kind. Thev 
 are in the nature of things, exemplifying even in 
 association a certain competition that no artifice 
 can eradicate. 
 
 It is more difficult to seek the reason why we 
 have not obtained the same results as other coun- 
 tries. To do this we should have to make a com- 
 parison with each of them, wfiich would take us 
 too far from our subject, so ^ve will only submit 
 a general remark : that is, that we started relative- 
 ly too late. We had notliing done, whereas 
 elsewhere the movement was in some cases very 
 advanced. Also, it began in our country almost al 
 the end of the crisis of hard times and when the 
 general satisfaction at the rise in prices was of a 
 nature to diminish the energy and arrest the 
 ardour of many. 
 
 Taking everything into account, nothing prevents 
 us believing that we can make up for lost time, and 
 possess in a few years a whole harv^est of agricul- 
 tural cooperatives comparable in importance to 
 our agricultural insurance societies and our mutual 
 credit associations.
 
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