648 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



calculation of our farmer's market man is never in the least based upon 

 the probabilities concerning these changes. 



But the second great cause is the saleman's ignorance or carlessness. 

 He never stops to think that the capricious market price, like uncertain 

 weather, is controlled by great laws or that a given set of conditions 

 will always give a like variation in price. Making no effort to systematize 

 distribution or steady the market, each group of merchants desires only 

 to buy cheap and sell dear. Without general system or foresight, produce 

 is heaped into the large towns till the consumer is surfeited while small 

 towns are thoroughly neglected. Often the actual cost of fruit, dairy 

 products, or even staple foods, differ by one-third in a large town and a 

 hamlet a few miles away. 



This lack of care is further illustrated by the criticism of the United 

 States Secretary of Agriculture, who says that the disposal of our surplus 

 in foreign markets is mismanaged. When there is a large home crop 

 the poorest of it is dumped as surplus into our foreign markets while 

 with a normal crop these markets are entirely neglected. Canada, 

 using more care, demands higher prices than'does the United States in 

 foreign markets. But the third and greatest cause of the mismanage- 

 ment of our markets is the monoply or dishonesty of the two great 

 controllers of the farmer's market — the means of distribution or the 

 railroad, and the agents of distribution or the middleman as we see hiin 

 in the board of trade and the commission merchant.. 



The railroad and elevator companies of the West are the only means 

 by which the farmers' great crop, otherwise worthless, can be trans- 

 ported and distributed throughout the country. But the railroads are 

 natural monopolies. They seldom compete for the farmer's produce but 

 uniting with each other and the elevator companies, raise the rates so 

 high that the farmer, who must ship, is robbed of nearly all his profits. 

 One the one hand railroads will discriminate in favor of a great corporate 

 manufacturing industry, but on the other, have no fear of the single- 

 handed farmer. Before any reform in the market themselves can take 

 place, these silent filchings from the farmer's purse must be stopped and 

 some magic charm must force the railroad monoply to give the farmer's 

 produce good rates and the best connection for thorough distribution. 



But fully as detrimental to the farmer is the dishonesty and monop- 

 oly of our agents of distribution. Of these middlemen who are respons- 

 ible for the farmer's markets there are two classes, the boards of trade 

 and the commission merchants who are especially unfair to farmer and 

 consumer as well. A board of trade in Chicago is organized for handling 

 wheat, for instance, at the greatest profit. The wheat is consigned by 

 western elevator companies to a broker in Chicago, is shipped to him and 

 there stored to await distribution over the country. But without touch- 

 ing the wheat the broker sells the ownership to another at a profit and so 

 on to another till all possible profit is wrung from it. Or else several make 

 a corner, buying up all the wheat in the market and then disposing of it at 

 immense profits. The wheat is finally reshipped to other points but at a 

 cost that would be wealth to the farmer who raised it. Were it not for 

 this ruinous monopoly our great staple foods could be distributed at a 

 fraction of the present expense. 



The second class of monopolists are the commission merchants and 



