Cooperation is as necessary for the fullest satisfaction of our
other wants as it is in the business of making a living. In one
pioneer community there were few "books and papers and they were
handed about from house to house." There may be comparatively few
people in a community who can afford to buy a hundred books each
year; but there may easily be a hundred persons who could buy one
book each, and by some arrangement exchange with one another, so
that each could in the course of a year have the use of a hundred
books. Neighborhood clubs are often organized to subscribe for
magazines on this plan. A public library provides an arrangement
by which a great variety of good reading matter can be enjoyed by
the entire community at trifling cost to each member. In fact, we
may be able to draw books from such a library without any cost to
ourselves; but the books which we thus enjoy do cost the community
a large sum of money, and our free enjoyment of them is one of the
advantages of community cooperation. Our part in the cooperation
is in using the books carefully and in returning them promptly, so
that as many people as possible may have the use of them.

NATION-WIDE COOPERATION

The necessity for cooperation is by no means limited to our
neighborhood or county or city. People with common purposes
organize for cooperation on a state-wide or nation-wide scale.
Following is a list of national organizations in the interest of
agriculture. As our study proceeds, we shall have abundant
illustration of the value of cooperation and of the disadvantages
that follow from its absence.