AGRICULTURE is the chief industry of the country, and gives direct employment to rather more than one-half of its inhabitants. Over 80 per cent. of the land is productive, and of that the greater part is divided into small farms which are worked by their owners. Holdings, varying in extent from 33 to 270 acres, constitute con siderably over one-half of the total agricultural area. Oats, rye, and barley are the chief cereals grown, and potatoes, roots, and sugar-beet are all raised on a fairly extensive scale.
Climatic conditions and the sterility of the soil have combined to render dairy-farming of more importance than the cultivation of the land, and, with the development of the co-operative system, the butter industry has, within recent years, made such rapid progress that it is now the chief element in the agricultural economy of the people. Co-operative dairies, of which there were in 1909 between 1,100 and 1,200, with a membership of over 150,000, collect the milk and convert it into butter under conditions much more favourable than the farmer, and more especially the small farmer, has at his disposal ; and the milk from over 90 per cent. of the milch cows in the country is now dealt with in these dairies. Danish butter possesses a high reputation in Great Britain, to which practically the whole of it is sent. Since skimmed milk, a bye
product of the dairy industry, can be beneficially used as a food for pigs, their number has also increased rapidly ; in 1881 there were 527,000, and in 1909, 1,466,000. The bulk of the bacon is prepared in co-operative factories, of which there are between twenty and thirty in the country. The export trade in eggs, which has now assumed considerable dimensions, is also controlled by co-operative societies in whose establishments all eggs are examined before being despatched to the consumer. In explaining the success of the co-operative movement in Denmark, it ought to be noted, in the first place, that all the articles dealt with by the co-operative societies can be easily graded, and, in the second place, that they can be held back for a time (butter may be salted, and eggs preserved) if market conditions happen to be temporarily unfavourable. These facts, which have contributed greatly to the success of co-operation in Demnark, are frequently lost sight of by those who hold up the Danish system as an example to other countries. At the same time it ought to be remembered that the reputation of their dairy products is jealously guarded both by:the people and the Government of Denmark.