increasing the manufacture or
"processing" of agricultural products which is an asset to the community
if performed locally as far as possible. Butter is no longer made in the
home but at the creamery, and milk is prepared for the city market at
the shipping station, or is sold to a local condensary, all of which
employ more or less skilled labor. With crops which are perishable or
bulky, "processing" must be performed locally. Thus canneries are
located where the vegetables or fruits are grown. Although the selling
of equipment for cooperative canning plants has been almost as much of a
swindle as promoting cooperative creameries, yet large numbers of
cooperative creameries exist where conditions for them are suitable, and
there seems no inherent reason why cooperative canneries cannot be made
successful when farmers have learned how to organize and to employ
expert help.[22] In his delightful vision of the possibilities of a new
Ireland, entitled "The National Being," George William Russell ("A.
E."), holds out the hope that the increase of such local cooperative
manufacture of agricultural products may be the means of furnishing an
opportunity for the rural laborer to better his status.

"But what I hope for most," he says, "is first that the
natural evolution of the rural community, and the
concentration of individual manufacture, purchase, and sale
into communal enterprises, will lead to a very large
cooperative ownership of expensive machinery, which will
necessitate the communal employment of labor. If this takes
place, as I hope it will, the rural laborer, instead of
being a manual worker using primitive implements, will have
the status of a skilled mechanic employed permanently by a
cooperative community. He should be a member of the society
which employs him, and in the division of the profits
receive in proportion to his wage, as the farmers in
proportion to their trade."[23]

To the extent that "processing" farm products is taken from the farm and
performed at the community center, or that there is a division of labor,
the local community is thereby strengthened, for its life is more highly
organized; it is more inter-dependent.

An interesting phase of the relation of the community to the farm
business is in the protection of crops and animals from insect pests and
diseases. If one man plants his wheat late enough to escape the