1 40 DEEP FURROWS 



a pair of pants, a shirt and a slouch hat that sat on a 



wagon-load of wheat, drove it up the incline into the 



elevator and rattled away again for another load ! To 



farm was an occupation easily parsed subjunctive 



/Imood, past tense, passive voice ! The farmer was third 



f (person, singular! He came and went in single file like 



an Indian or a Chinaman John Doe, Yon Yonson and 



Johann X (his marjy every kind of Johnny on no 



spot but his own! <As soon as his grain was dumped 



each of him went back to the land among the dumb 



, animals where the pomp and vanity of this wicked 



world would .not interfere with preparations for next 



year's crop ! \ 



Wheat was bought upon the grading system so 

 much per bushel for this grade, so much for that, 

 according to the fluctuations of supply and demand 

 upon the world's markets. But the average farmer at 

 that time knew little or nothing about what went on 

 in the great exchanges of the cities ; there was no means 

 of learning the intricacies of the grain business and 

 many farmers even did not know what a grain exchange 

 was. All such a man knew was that his w^heat was 

 graded and he received a certain price for it. 



The railway company's refusal to furnish cars for 

 loading direct from the farmer's wagon compelled the 

 shipper to sell to the elevator operator for whatever 

 price he could get, accepting whatever weights the 

 operator allowed and whatever " dockage " he chose to 

 decree. The latter represented that portion of the 

 farmer's delivery which was supposed to come through 

 the cleaning sieves as waste material such as dirt, weed 

 seeds, broken wheat kernels, etc. To determine the 

 percentage of dockage in any given load of wheat the 

 ordinary human being would require to weigh and 



