54 LAND AND LABOR. 



there grown, was selling, from the local stores, at about 

 seven dollars a barrel. With wheat at seventy cents 

 a bushel, the highest price the small former could 

 obtain, and flour at seven dollars a barrel, which he 

 was compelled to pay for all that he consumed, it is 

 readily seen that the wheat grower is compelled to 

 give ten bushels of wheat for one barrel of flour, that 

 contains only about four and one half bushels of the 

 grain from which it is made. That the farmer now, 

 instead of having his wheat converted into flour, as 

 did our fathers, for a toll of one eighth or tenth, is 

 compelled to submit to an extortion of more than one 

 half, in face of the fact that machinery has greatly 

 facilitated that operation. In Kansas I found that 

 the toll extorted from the farmers by some of the 

 local flouring mills amounted, in some cases, to more 

 than seventy per cent. I did not observe any flouring 

 mills upon the lines of those roads. 



I particularly noticed the conspicuous absence of 

 women and children upon the large farms. In no 

 case was the permanent residence of a family to be 

 found upon them, or anything that could be called a 

 home, with a possible exception in the instance of Mr. 

 Kendall, on the Thompson & Kendall farm. Even 

 the Dalrymple families being but transient dwellers 

 at the farms, their homes being in St. Paul. The 

 id' ,i of home does not pertain to them ; they are sim- 

 ple business ventures, before which the home feature 

 ninks out of sight. 



Naturally this will save all expense of schools or 

 churches in their neighborhood, and the schoolmaster 

 and clergyman will there have a perpetual holiday. 



