Author: "Vest-Pocket Lawyer", "Know Your Compen- Buildings", etc. Published by THE HOMESTEAD COMPANY DES MOINES, IOWA PREFACE The farm cooperative movement is not new. It is one of the old things appearing new to a great many people. The modern movement started some ten or fifteen years before the dawn of the Twentieth Century; it has steadily grown and the reason that it now appears new to the majority of business men and thinkers in this country is because it has just commenced to attain those proportions which demand national attention. The author has been more than casually interested in the farm cooperative movement for several years past. His investigations of and personal visits to outstanding farm cooperative associations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri, were first undertaken to secure magazine material for Leslie's Weekly and other periodicals. Since coming to Pierce's Farm Weeklies he has been thrown into even closer contact with the movement and its leaders. There is a common thought given currency in regard to the farm cooperative movement which is entirely incorrect, and that is the thought that it is socialistic in principle. Socialism is popularly decried and denied in this country and is applied |