Proceedings of Seventeenth I^or^tal Institute 191 



American farmer is face to face with a challenge to his individu- 

 ality which will either make or break him. 



As a producer he may, if he wishes, continue in the ways of 

 old ; but as a seller of produce he must either adopt the methods 

 of today or accept the consequences of economic loss. The two 

 elements which have changed our economic methods are the de- 

 velopment of large business and the development of the methods 

 of transportation. These again are due to the growth of popula- 

 tion and the consequent possibility of making use of inventions 

 and resources, which a small population could not adequately 

 consume. The relation between the producer and consumer, 

 under these conditions, has developed into a more exacting de- 

 mand for a standardized product, at a time and in such quantities 

 as the consumer wishes it. The result is a considerable number 

 of middlemen and storage agencies unheard of in more primitive 

 days. The development as here sketched is the" same in agricul- 

 ture as in any other line. It is a fallacy leading to very gi-ave 

 error to suppose that the principles of business are not applicable 

 to agriculture, because it differs in so many ways from other 

 lines that it has its own laws of evolution. It cannot be said 

 too often that as a producer the farmer has problems different 

 from other producers; but as a seller of products his problems 

 are identical, in general, with those of sellers of other pro4ncts. 



These problems are quantitative and qualitative. A few pro- 

 ducers will be able to seek out a few consumers, but the mass of 

 producers must seek out the consumers in masses. They must 

 have the quantity and quality to meet the combined demands of 

 the consumers. The middleman is, therefore, a natural develop- 

 ment in our economic life. Theoretically it is deducible that 

 every middleman could be eliminated — but not the functions 

 of the middleman. When either the producer or the consumer, 

 or both, take over the functions of the middleman, then that ter- 

 rible personage will cease to exist. That all middlemen are not 

 honest is simply saying that not all businessmen are honest, that 

 not all professors are honest, that not all preachers are honest. 

 If the middlemen are too many and charge too much, the remedy 

 lies in meeting the situation with a better solution of the distribu- 

 tion or marketing problem. That solution, and the only solu- 



