32 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

 4. Require officers, directors, and other agents to
 comply with the law under which the association
 was set up and with its articles of incorporation.
 by-laws, and marketing contracts
 5. Hold directors and officers who fall so to comply
 liable for any losses caused members by failure.
 6. Examine the association's books and records and
 its property, when the request is made in good
 faith and at a proper time.

 46. Q. DO MANY COOPERATIVES FAIL?
 A. Some do, as a matter of course. Some should
never have been organized. Others are launched with
insufficient educational work among the members. Tak-
en as a group, cooperatives have a much better record
of survival than have businesses in general. A survey
made by the Farmer Cooperative Service inquired into
the cause of the failure of a number of cooperatives.
Briefly summarized, the reasons assigned for coopera-
tive failures were as follows:
 (a) Difficulties in management high overhead,
 inadequate accounting, speculation, friction
 among board members, etc.
 (b) Difficulties in membership-lack of necessary
 information among members, inexperience of
 farmers in cooperating, promises of big refunds
 unfulfilled, etc.
 (c) Financial difficulties-under-financed by mem-
 bers, too liberal credit, over-borrowing, fire
 loss with insufficient insurance, insistence of
 members on refunds when cash is needed in
 business, operating with too small margins,
 lack of financial reserves, etc.
 (d) Insufficient volume of business -failure to
 check carefully on volume available before or-
 gamzation, failure of members to patronize the