CO-PERATIVE FARMING.

Wanganui Herald, Volume IV, Issue 1112, 9 March 1871, Page 2

CO-PERATIVE FARMING.

The co-operative Farm System- is wholly unconnected with tlie s mall farm system. The members form an agricultural company, but the land is not divided among them sd as to give

each one a piece to himself, and, in fact, they have no more to do with its cultivation than the shareholders in a railway company have to do with its traffic. The profits are divided amongst them every 3 rear, and are to be paid partly in money and partly in kind ; but for all they have to do with the actual tillage of the land they might as well live a hundred miles off, or have their money in the Crystal Palace. Here at once is a highly important dis-A tinction between this method of im^|

proving the position of the labourer, and all those which depend upon making him an actual cultivator on his own account. The members continue what they ever were, ordinary day labourers, who work for the farmers of the parish at the ordinary weekly wages, as, indeed, they may work under their own manager on the same terms if they choose, and if out of employment they have a preferential claim upon. him. But that is all. The only farmer in the case is the paid manager, and he is little if at all, above the rank of an ordinary peasant. He receives 12s a week, and he is assisted by two-other officials, elected annually, who play the part of directors. The manager occupies what corresponds to the farmhouse upon the farm, and he and his colleagues are supposed to meet in council once a week, when questions of cropping, manuring and what not, arc, if necessary, put to the vote; but, practically, the whole, -working of the machine is in the hands of one man, who stands in the place of the ordinal y tenant-farmer. AH the members arc obliged to be agricultural laborers, except, as we were told, three—but as Mr Frascr was informed, six—these being, according to one account, a blacksmith, a wheelwright, and a miller; according to the other a shoemaker and two carpenters besides ; so that the little settlement, aided as it is by a co-operative store, is complete -within itself. No member is allowed to live more than three miles from the parish, to accept parish relief, or to retain his share if convicted of a felonious offence. All arc obliged to belong to an approved benefit society, and the -widow of a member may retain her husband's share during her own lifetime. —Kelhel's Agricultural Laborer.