No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 11 



will consume tliein, without the necessity of paying exorbitant 

 charges, and if these advantages to the public cannot be secured in 

 any other way the whole matter should be regulated by legislation. 



One of the agricultural industries of the State that has suffered 

 a slow but sure process of weakening by the agencies referred to, is 

 that of fattening cattle. The farmers, in many of the corn raising 

 sections of the State, fatten steers with their corn to keep the fer- 

 tility on the farm; one of the most desirable industries for the con- 

 sumers of meat and for the farmer who works for a permanent agri- 

 culture, that can be practiced. These farmers go into the open mar- 

 kets in the fall of the year and buy what they call "feeders" and 

 frequently are obliged to sell these steers the following spring, after 

 having put them into the very best marketable condition, for the 

 same price per cwt. they paid for them in the fall, or for the meagre 

 advance of ten, twenty, thirty, forty or fifty cents per hundred 

 pounds. To prove this statement, one need only consult the market 

 journals, where it will be seen that feeders and stockers purchased 

 in the fall sell for the same price in the spring as fat cattle. Taik 

 to a farmer who has been following this business, about improving his 

 farm or doing intensive farming, and he will be tempted to say things 

 that should not go into a public report. 



THE FARMERS ATTITUDE 



From these facts already given, it is plain that the farmer is not 

 getting exorbitant prices for his products; that by the agencies that 

 should be his servants he is sometimes made to be the competitor of 

 the whole nation and even to compete with himself, and that while 

 his products cost the ultimate consumer too much, this extra cost 

 is added after delivery to the transportation companies and before 

 reaching the ultimate consumer. 



The farmer is not ignorant of these conditions. He says. ''Why 

 should I raise ten thousand heads of cabbage if by keeping down pro- 

 duction 1 can get as much money for five thousand heads, or why 

 should I keep a dairy of twenty cows if by keeping down production 

 1 can make as much out of a dairy of ten cows?" 



If the producer could sell directly to the consumer, he would have 

 the means of knowing how many cabbages and how many pounds of 

 butter or how much of other products his patrons would consume, 

 and all this effervescence of "over-production" and "not enough pro- 

 duction" and "the high cost of living" would be to a great extent dis- 

 pensed with. 



People who complain of the high cost of living and who are dis- 

 posed to lay the blame for the same upon the farmer, should give their 

 attention to the possibility of eliminating the undue number of 

 middlemen and their profits and, by arranging systems of co-opera- 

 tive buying, meet the farmer or producer upon some common ground 

 or a basis of action that will prove profitable to both parties. In 

 many Instances, if general and local brokers, wholesalers and jobbers, 

 together with the retail dealers, are all counted, it will be seen that 

 many commodities must pay from three to five middlemen's profits 

 before they get from the producer to the consumer. The farmers of 

 the country are ready to join hands with the consumers in an ar- 

 rangement for cutting out these unjust and unnecessary profits, as 



