6P^ BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Sept., 



small competitor. Again, it^ advantage is on the side of bar- 

 gaining rather than on the side of production. Finally, it 

 may perfect a great selling organization with branches in 

 every nook and corner of the country and be able therefore 

 to take advantage of every local situation. This is an es- 

 pecially efhcient device in bargaining and not in producing, 

 — in selling the product rather than in producing it. 



The small farmer working alone is generally at a disad- 

 vantage in this work of buying and selling or bargaining. 

 He may be a \ery efficient producer, — in fact it appears that 

 the middle-sized farm, or the farm which enables one family to 

 utilize its own labor power to the best advantage is the most 

 economical unit from the standpoint of production that has 

 yet been discovered, but this advantage in production is 

 partially offset by its disadvantage in buying and selling. A 

 huge farm that can buy and sell on a large scale is usually 

 not so efficient in the work of production, but gains enough 

 through its efficiency in buying and selling to make up for its 

 inefficiency m production. The ideal combination would be 

 such an organization among a large number of small farmers 

 as would give them the advantage in buying and selling 

 W'hich belongs to the bonanza farm and at the same time pre- 

 serve for them the advantages in production which they al- 

 ready possess. As to marketing, there are certain well-recog- 

 nized principles wdiich apply to farm products as well as to 

 anything else. The marketing of farm products does not in 

 itself present any serious difficulty. Farm products are no 

 more difficult to sell than are the products of the mines and 

 the factories. The only difficulty is that which the small 

 farmer finds in adopting the same methods which have to be 

 adopted by other business men. 



There are four things necessary to the successful marketing 

 of farm products. In the first place, the products must be 

 j.;ood. It will never be easy to sell poor products at a good 

 price. The products must be such as the consumers like, 

 otherwise the consumers will never buv them eaq-erlv. But 

 even a good product must be graded or standarized. The 

 man who buys a barrel of apples may have pretty definite 

 notions as to what kind he wants. He does not like to ]:)uy 

 vSeveral other kinds mixed in, in order to get a few of the 



