THE MIDDLEMAN IN AGRICULTURE. 79 



on the market day rows of small farmers or their wives 

 may be seen in the market, each with a basket full of 

 produce, brought direct from the farm, which is purchased 

 directly from them by the consumers. In other cases 

 farmers occupying a considerable acreage, and conducting 

 a large business, have " gone into " the milk trade, and 

 have sent out their milk from house to house in their own 

 carts. But while other instances might no doubt be 

 found in different localities, speaking generally it is true 

 to say that the average farmer does not dispose of any 

 appreciable part of the produce grown on the land without 

 the intervention of one or more persons as distributors. 



Perhaps the only branch of agricultural industry which 

 is usually conducted on the principle of direct supply is 

 the trade in pedigree stock. Whether the breeder holds a 

 sale on his own farm, or sends his animals to a market or 

 fair, he does no doubt dispose of them practically direct 

 to the persons who use them. It is true that the middle- 

 men has, especially of late years, crept into these trans- 

 actions in the shape of the auctioneer, and it is a rather 

 curious fact that in spite of agricultural depression 

 farmers should have found it necessary to rely to so very 

 great an extent on the auction system instead of upon the 

 old plan of sale by private contract. Still, the auction 

 system is unquestionably a convenient means of arriving 

 at the result of the higgling of the market ; and, at any 

 rate, though one might be inclined on some grounds to 

 regret the supremacy which it has attained, it would not 

 be fair to say that farmers suffer any special detriment, or 

 pay any extravagant amount, for the advantages which 

 they obtain from its adoption. 



One word may be ventured, in passing, on this subject, 

 and that is that farmers have an undoubted right to 

 resent any attempt, such as is alleged to have been made 

 in some localities by the auctioneers, to dictate to them the 

 way in which they shall sell their stock. It has been said 

 that considerable opposition has been more or less overtly 



