corporation, its days are numbered. It requires also the
diffusion of a good deal of economic thought among its members, and
this, also, is no small matter in the conditions. The most striking fact
about this work in Ireland is that while in its earlier years
organisation consisted mainly in expounding and commending to farmers
the cooperative principle, we now find that the principle is taken for
granted and the only question upon which advice is needed is how to
apply it. The progress of agricultural cooperation depends largely on
the character of the community; its commercial value may be measured by
the extent to which it develops in the community the mental and moral
qualities essential to success.[6]

In agricultural cooperation, Ireland can claim to have shown the way to
the United Kingdom. Ten years ago, after the Irish movement had been
launched, the English rural reformers started a movement on exactly the
same lines, even founding on the Irish model an English Agricultural
Organisation Society. An Irishman, who had studied cooperation at home,
was selected as its chief executive officer. Five years later, a
Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society took the field. Both in
England and in Scotland the chief difficulty to be overcome is the
intense individualism of the farmers, and perhaps some lack of altruism.
The large farmers did not feel the need of cooperation, and where the
natural leader of the rural community will not lead, the small
cultivator cannot follow. Whether the same difficulties have prevented
any considerable adoption of agricultural cooperation in the United
States, it is not necessary to inquire. It is certain that the
underlying principles approved by every progressive rural, community in
Europe have not so far exercised more than an occasional and fitful
influence upon the rural economy of the American Republic.

If I have given in these pages a true explanation of the deplorable
backwardness of American farmers in the matter of business combination
when compared with all other American workers, those who take part in
the movement which is to provide the remedy will have set themselves a
task as hopeful as it is interesting. Americans as a people are addicted
to associated action. I have seen the principle of cooperation developed
to the highest point in the ranching industry in the days of the
unfenced range. Our cattle used to roam at large, the only means of
identifying them being ce