Chapter TWO 31 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     buy anything they needed on credit until the fishing 
     
     season was over; then the value of their purchases would 
     
     be subtracted from the value of the fish caught by the 
     
     men of the family. Sometimes there would be little or 
     
     nothing left. Such a system — and it was commonplace in 
     
     North American communities where fishing had become 
     
     an industry - was only profitable to the owners. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Myrick Company was the quintessence of 
     
     nineteenth-century capitalism on a relatively small scale. It 
     
     could be said that for over sixty years it overshadowed any 
     
     other form of business in the Tignish area. Yet three co— 
     
     operative institutions also developed between 1860 and 
     
     1900 — one a branch organization, and the others local. 
     
     They were the Farmers’ Bank, the ”graineries” (sic), and 
     
     the Cheese Factory. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Although the Farmers’ Bank was in Rustico, not 
     
     Ti gnish, it had members from many Acadian communities. 
     
     The members in Tignish sent down their money for deposit 
     
     every month. For a time it was Stanislaus Perry who 
     
     transported the deposits on horseback. Founded in 1863 
     
     by Father Belcourt, the parish priest, it worked in much 
     
     the same way as its descendents — the modern credit 
     
     unions. Like them it was an institution owned by its 
     
     members. It was able not only to help them save, but, 
     
     even more important, to provide them with the possibility 
     
     of getting loans which banks would not handle. The 
     
     Farmers’ Bank would approve loans on the basis of its 
     
     directors’ knowledge of the person in question; it would 
     
     also approve smaller loans than banks would. The Bank 
     
     closed its doors in 1893 due to pressure by the federal 
     
     government, which did not want such small banks around, 
     
     It had provided an excellent service which was not available 
     
     again until credit unions were introduced in the 19305. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The “graineries” originated in 1862 in what is now 
     
     known as the Evangeline Region, the part of the Island