tion render
possible. The knowledge which each member has of the character and
business methods of his fellow members who borrow, and of the use to
which borrowed funds are put, and the stake which each one has in the
financial stability and success of the organization, bring the
percentage of losses to a very low figure, and make it possible for
these societies to grant their members maximum accommodations at
minimum prices.

To the funds accumulated from initiation fees, membership dues and the
sale of the associations' credit have been added, in constantly
increasing amounts in recent years, the savings of the members
themselves. Many societies have such an amount of funds intrusted to
them in this way that they are not only entirely freed from the
necessity of borrowing, but are obliged to seek opportunities for
investment outside their own group.

This condition of affairs, in addition to many other common interests,
led to the federation of the Schulze-Delitzsch societies into larger
groups, and these in turn into state and national associations,
through which surplus funds in one could be made to serve the needs of
others inadequately supplied, and through which all the societies
could be brought into efficient connection with the general money
market of the country. For a number of years these federated
societies conducted a large central institution, first in Frankfurt
and afterwards in Berlin, known as the Deutsche Genossenschaftsbank.
In 1904, however, this institution was absorbed by the Dresdener Bank,
one of the eight great private banking corporations of Germany, which
now serves as the central agency for all these societies.

The membership of these associations is not restricted to any class of
persons, and they actually include a very large number of small
farmers. An inquiry made in 1885 showed that in 545 of them, with a
total membership of 270,808, there were 72,994 farmers, and that
one-fifth of the total loans of these associations were made to this
class of their members. They must, therefore, be numbered among the
land banks of the Empire, or at least among the institutions which are
helping to solve the credit problem for the agricultural classes.

The Raiffeisen societies resemble the Schulze-Delitzsch in many
particulars and differ from them in others. Like them they are
strictly cooperative in character, and, when organized for credit
purposes, designed to supply members with loans on t