wo years. In the first place while a number of
small groceries closed their doors, the larger cooperatives have grown
larger and more prosperous. At last there appear to have developed
cooperatives which have passed that critical stage connected with the
life of a newly-organized business. One of these larger cooperatives,
which did over $200,000 worth of business in 1921, has turned its
surplus into its business ever since it started and is now buying more
land to erect a second business block in order to take care of expansion
which is forced upon it by the growing trade. Another cooperative has
established two prosperous branches and is now doing a business of a
quarter of a million dollars a year. A third, following a profitable
year in which its business amounted to $205,000, is likewise building a
new plant. The balance sheets of each of these associations would be the
envy of most business undertakings.

A second development is the appearance of a new type of management. A
group of younger men and women with a broad background, an intense
interest in cooperation and a capacity of growing up with the business
is working now to make these cooperatives even more successful. The
cooperative movement is likely to grow in pretty close proportion to the
ability of these leaders and the men and women they can attach to
themselves. Heretofore the greatest handicap of the cooperative movement
in this country has been the lack of trained and able leaders.

A third significant development is the adoption by cooperatives of the
best methods of management and accounting. Until this had been done the
cooperatives had small chance of succeeding. It is probable that
cooperatives which lack some of the incentives of the ordinary
commercial business will be compelled constantly to adopt the most
efficient and advanced type of machinery. In setting this up as a
definite standard they will escape the inertia and conservatism that
ordinarily characterize large groups, a condition which at the present
time is retarding the British cooperative movement. Two years ago
accurate accounting was an unusual thing among cooperatives. At the
present time practically all the cooperatives in the State have their
books gone over periodically by trained public accountants.

A still further trend in the cooperative development is the extension of
the movement into new lines of business. To this extent the failure of
cooperative grocery stores has