Co-operative distribution would be as advantageous to the
country as in the town. Already in Ireland a considerable number of
farmers' societies are enlarging their objects, and are turning what
originally were purely agricultural associations into general purposes
societies, where the farmer's wife can purchase her d omestic
requirements as well as her man his machinery, fertilizers, feeding-
stuffs, and seeds. It would be to the interest of rural societies to
deal with co-operative wholesales just as much as it is in the interest
of urban stores to do so. It would be to their interest to take shares
in these wholesales and productive federations, and see that they cater
for the farmer's interests as much as for the townsman's.
The urban co-operators, on their side, will see the opportunities for
productive co-operation the union of rural and urban movements would
create. They naturally will desire to employ as many people as possible
in co-operative production. Farmers are surrounded by rings of all
kinds: machinery manufacturers who will not sell to their societies,
manure manufacturers' alliances who keep up prices.
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