The Raiffeisen societies rival the Schulze-Delitzsch in the rapidity of their growth and in the role they play in the economic life of modern Germany. In 1908 they numbered 5,047, of which 4,340 were credit associations. The collective balance sheets of these societies in 1907 showed 490,734,834 marks assets, 489,234,357 marks liabilities, and a membership of 405,819. While Germany was the pioneer in the establishment of land credit institutions, and while such institutions have attained a greater variety of form and a higher degree of perfection in that country than in any other, other countries have advanced along similar lines and now have institutions and a fund of experience well worthy of study. The institutions of Germany have in most cases served as models in these other countries, the mortgage banks and the Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen societies having been most frequently copied. These models have been adapted to foreign conditions and modified in interesting and instructive ways as well as copied without essential change. Among the mortgage banks developed outside of Germany the Credit Foncier of France is especially noteworthy. In its organization it was modeled after the Bank of France and is second only to that institution in the magnitude of its operations and the scope of its influence. Its head office is in Paris and it has at least one branch in each department. Its capital stock owned by private parties amounts to about $40,000,000, its surplus to over $4,000,000, its loans secured by mortgage to over $400,000,000, and its total resources to about $1,000,000,000. Like the German mortgage banks, it secures the greater part of its loan funds through the issue of mortgage bonds and a large percentage of its loans are made on mortgage security for long periods of time and are repayable on the annuity plan. However, it transacts a greater variety of business than does the typical mortgage bank of Germany. It loans on city and farm real estate and to communes, and it transacts a large commercial banking business, though this is distinctly a side issue, incorporated with its other business in order to give profitable employment to funds, sometimes large in amount, which are temporarily on hand awaiting investment. At various times it has absorbed competing institutions and at times it has established collateral institutions to transact lines of business for which its own constitution and legal limitations did not fit it. Among these the most important are the Credit Agricole and the Foncier Algierienne. It was obliged ultimately to absorb and liquidate the former, but the latter still flourishes in the colony of Algiers.