Seventy-Third Annual Report 1295 



tain, and more accessible. The risk of crop failure is less, thanks 

 to the wondi'rt'ul progress of scientific agriculture. There are few 

 pests which cannot now he readily controlled by the intelligent 

 fanner, who takes time by the forelock. The problem of moisture 

 is growing less serious every year with the improvements in irri- 

 gation, dry farming and the more scientific diversification of 

 crops. 



Farmers furthennore are getting together more than ever be- 

 fore ; they understand each other better ; and there is a growing 

 sense of unity of interest. This has been stimulated in part by 

 the exactions of the middleman to whom the farmer sells and from 

 whom he buys. It finds expression in meetings such as this, in 

 the grange, the agricultural college, and in the increasing resort 

 to cooperation, as in cooperative buying, selling, cooperative 

 creameries, cheese factories, grain elevators, telephone exchanges 

 and the like. 



But, says the sceptic, granting that all this may be true, it does 

 not necessarily follow that we need cooperative agricultural banks. 

 The United States already has over SO, 000 commercial banks, 

 national, state, and private, a large proportion of which are in 

 small towns and villages, and all of which can loan to farmers. 

 "And, as a matter of fact," the sceptic adds, " a great many of 

 these banks do loan to farmers." 



For over a year, I have been making inquiries in dift'erent sec- 

 tions of the country as to the extent to which responsible farmers 

 could secure of local banks an adequate supply of short-time credit 

 on reasonable tenns. The replies to these inquiries show widely 

 divergent conditions in different sections of the country, and often 

 in neighboring parts of the same section. In some sections farm- 

 ers seem to be well provided with credit facilities at fair rates. 

 One informant, for example, in JSTebraska writes : " I have never 

 felt that in this locality farmers suffered in any way from lack of 

 credit facilities. In this section, farmers use short-time credit 

 to fully as great an extent as do business men in the city and 

 smaller to\\Tis. In fact, I think it is true that in the smaller 

 towns the l>ankers favor the farmers in preference to the small 

 business men." Similar reports have been received from parts 

 of Indiana, and from Iowa. The latter state appears to be par- 



