When the creameries were started in the West several years ago, there was much complaint of swindlers, fake stock companies, and co-operative ventures in which the manager absconded with the butter money. To-day more than half of the American creameries are co-operative and the number is constantly increasing. They are efficient and successful in every way, and to-day make the finest of butter and pay the highest prices to the farmer for his cream. But their way was first paved and the business developed by successful private concerns. Co-operation is entirely feasible and successful where the people behind the movement have enough interest in the enterprise and good enough business sense to run the proposition as efficiently as similar private enterprises are run. The idea that co-operation must always result in a big saving is a misconception. Employes will not work any harder for an association than for a private employer, sometimes not as hard. Certainly no employee will work as hard for an association as he will for himself. Why people should expect to buy out the grocery store and hire the grocer to run it and save money for themselves, is a thing I could never understand. But if there is some great waste that co-operation will prevent, as where seven milk wagons drive every morning over the same route, or where the market of perishable crops is glutted one day and starved the next, centralization, corporate or co-operate, will pay. I know of no better way to impress the reader with American co-operation in actual practice than to quote from a brief account of the California Fruit Growers' Exchange. The Exchange was founded upon the theory that every member is entitled to furnish his pro rata of the fruit for shipment through his association, and every association to its pro rata to the various markets of the country. This theory reduced to practice gives every grower his fair share, and the average price of all markets throughout the season. Another cardinal provision of the plan was that all fruit should be marketed on a level basis of actual cost, with all books and accounts open for inspection at the pleasure of the members. These broad principles of full co-operation constitute the basis of the Exchange movement. The Exchange system is simple, but quite democratic. The local association consists of a number of growers contiguously situated, who unite themselves for the purpose of preparing their fruit for market on a co-operative basis. They establish their own brands, make such rules as they may agree upon for grading, packing and pooling their fruit. Usually these associations own thoroughly equipped packing houses.