count for the
backwardness of American and British farmers in the obviously important
matter of organisation. The farmer, we know, is everywhere the most
conservative and individualistic of human beings. He dislikes change in
his methods, and he venerates those which have come down to him from his
fathers' fathers. Whatever else he may waste, these traditions he
conserves. He does not wish to interfere with anybody else's business,
and he is fixedly determined that others shall not interfere with his.
These estimable qualities make agricultural organisation more difficult
in Anglo-Saxon communities than in those where clan or tribal instincts
seem to survive.[4]

Now it is fair to the farmer to admit that his calling does not lend
itself readily to associative action. He lives apart; most of his time
is spent in the open air, and in the evening of the working day physical
repose is more congenial to him than mental activity. But when all this
is said, we have not a complete explanation of the fact that, by failing
to combine, American and British farmers, persistently disobey an
accepted law, and refuse to follow the almost universal practice of
modern business. I believe the true explanation to be one that has
somehow escaped the notice of the agricultural economist. Those who
accept it will feel that they have found the weak spot in American
farming, and that the remedy is neither obscure nor difficult to apply.

The form of combination which the towns have invented for industrial and
commercial purposes is the Joint Stock Company. Here a number of persons
contribute their capital to a common fund and entrust the direction to
a single head or committee, taking no further part in the business
except to change the management if the undertaking does not yield a
satisfactory dividend. Our urban way of looking at things has made us
assume that this city system must be suitable to rural conditions. The
contrary is the fact. When farmers combine, it is a combination not of
money only, but of personal effort in relation to the entire business.
In a cooperative creamery, for example, the chief contribution of a
shareholder is in milk; in a cooperative elevator, corn; in other cases
it may be fruit or vegetables, or a variety of material things rather
than cash. But it is, most of all, a combination of neighbours within an
area small enough to allow of all the members meeting frequently at the
business centre. As the system de