CHAPTER VI 



ON A CARD IN THE WINDOW OP WILSON'S OLD STORE 



. . . Is it vain to hope 

 The sons of such a land will climb and grope 

 Along the undiscovered ways of life, 

 And neither seek nor be found shunning strife, 

 But ever, beckoned by a high ideal, 

 Press onward, upward, till they make it real; 

 With feet sure planted on their native sod, 

 And will and aspirations linked with God? 



Robert J. C. Stead. 



IDEAS grow. The particular idea which now began 

 to occupy the thoughts of E. A. Partridge to the 

 exclusion of everything else was a big idea to begin 

 with; but it kept on growing so rapidly that it soon 

 became an obsession. 



TVhy coulclnft the f<\ T * rnA ' p fs "th^nis^lv^TH-form SL com* 

 pany to undertake the marketing of their own wheat? 

 That was the idea. If a thousand farmers got together 

 in control of ten million bushels of wheat and sold 

 through a single accredited agency, they would be in the 

 same position exactly as a single person who owned ten 

 million bushels. If the owner of ten thousand bushels 

 was able to make a better bargain than the owner of 

 one thousand, what about the owner of ten million 

 bushels ? 



"Would the owner of ten million bushels peddle 

 his wheat by the wagonload at the local shipping 

 point or by the carload in Winnipeg?" mused Partridge. 

 "Would he pay one hundred thousand dollars to a 



