Business coöperation in agriculture is of three kinds: (1) coöperative production; (2) coöperative buying; (3) coöperative selling. The last two are extensively practiced in many regions. Coöperative production of animals and crops is practically unknown in the rural communities in the United States, and we are not to expect it to arise in those communities to any extent under the present organization of society. Colonies organized on a coöperative basis may practice it within their membership, but it is doubtful whether persons who are well equipped to be farmers will enter such organizations for this purpose so long as it is so easy to make a financial success at independent farming. There is a fourth form that should be mentioned, although it is not coöperation in the real sense, but rather a form of combination. I refer to movements to control the production or output of commodities, as of wheat, cotton, tobacco, maize, and arbitrarily to fix the price. This cannot be permanently accomplished with any of the great staples, and even if it could be accomplished, in my opinion it would be an economic and social error. Very much has been said about the necessity of business coöperation among farmers, and the importance of the subject can hardly be overstated; and yet it should be understood that economic coöperation is only one of many means that may be put in operation to propel country life. The essential thing is that country life be organized: if the organization is coöperative, the results--at least theoretically--should be the best; but in one place, the most needed coöperation may be social, in another place educational, in another religious, in another political, in another sanitary, in another economic in respect to buying and selling and making loans or providing insurance. When the chief deficiency in any region is economic, then it should be met by an organization that is primarily economic. Some of the effective coöperation in the West, so often cited, is really founded on the land-selling spirit of the community. In some parts of the United States, the financial status of the farmer is very low, but in general the economic condition is in advance of other conditions. The American farmer is prosperous,--not as prosperous as he ought to be, but so prosperous that he can conduct his own business without support or aid of his neighbors. Although he might gain financially by coöperation in any case, he nevertheless desires his complete freedom of action, even at the risk of some loss. The psychology of the American farmer is in the end the determining factor.