324 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL EEVIEW 



and sociologically, of attempting to preserve the traditional fam- 

 ily-sized farm and the general lay-out of the rural community 

 that is associated with it? 



The marketing of agricultural products — the steps by which 

 they were moved from the farmyard to the consumer — has in- 

 finite ramifications. Leading historians have asserted that the 

 development of marketing is the central force in economic de- 

 velopment, and L. B. Schmidt's survey of the grain trade of the 

 Middle West, Henrietta M. Larson's monograph on the Wheat 

 Market and the Farmer in Minnesota, and Guy Lee's research on 

 the Chicago grain elevators, bear out this view.-® Problems inci- 

 dent to marketing have usually been a factor in the so-called 

 farmer-protest movements, and the economics incident to the 

 spread between what the farmer receives and the consumer pays 

 may well be the approximate but unrecognized common-denom- 

 inator cause of these movements. The various ways by which 

 the farmers have attempted to increase their share of the retail 

 price and the multitudinous functions that the federal and state 

 governments have been forced to assume as a means of aiding 

 them in this respect are significant parts of this subject. 



Cooperative marketing alone is a large topic that is deserving 

 of further treatment than it has yet received. The fact that 

 cooperatives have tended to develop in terms of individual com- 

 modities rather than all of the economic activities of a commun- 

 ity as in Denmark and Ireland may be a significant trend, counter 

 to the professed democratic objectives of America. 



The river, lake, canal, and rail traffic by which the products 

 of the Middle "West reached the consumers has been the subject 

 of many studies. Less is known of the development of roads and 

 especially of the effects of the automobile and motor truck. 

 While the latter is related primarily to marketing, the former 

 also has a less tangible connection with the organization of rural 

 life. At some time in their history most rural localities had suffi- 



26 Louis B. Schmidt, "The Internal Grain Trade of the United States," Iowa Jour- 

 nal of History and Pnliti<'s, XVIII (1920), 94-124, XIX (1921), 196-245, 414-455, 

 XX (1922), 70-131; Henrietta M. Larson, "The Wheat Market and the Farmer in 

 Minnesota, 1858-1900," Columbia University Studies in History, Economics an4 Pub- 

 lic Law (New York), CXXII (1926), 203-475; Guy A. Lee, "The Historical Signi- 

 ficance of the Chicago Grain Elevator System," Agricultural History, XI (1937), 

 16-32. 



