156 DEEP FURROWS 



" I am verra pleased to leave the hale concern in your 

 hands as I do believe you are thoroughly plumb and 

 always square." 



With this encouragement the directors announced 

 that they would continue to charge a commission of one 

 cent per bushel on wheat shipped t9 Ijhem, just as if the 

 Commission Rule had not been suspended by the 

 Exchange. Other commission merchants, they knew, 

 intended to reduce their charges to half a cent per 

 bushel ; the elevator men, they expected, would handle 

 the grain for the same and in many cases for nothing 

 in order to persuade the farmers to ship their way. 

 It would be a great temptation to many farmers who 

 had been sitting on the fence, shouting " Sic 'em !" but 

 never lifting a little finger to help, and it was to be 

 expected that those with limited vision would ship their 

 grain where they could make the biggest saving at the 

 time. 



Notwithstanding, the directors believed that the 

 majority of the farmers would not prove one cent wise 

 and many dollars foolish by failing to realize what the 

 future might hold in store if the elevators succeeded in 

 killing off competition. Finding that it was possible to 

 handle oats on a smaller margin, they made the farmers 

 a gift reduction of half a cent per bushel on oat ship- 

 ments; otherwise the former rate was sustained. 



The wheat ripened. Harvesting began. The long 

 grain trains commenced to drag into Winnipeg across 

 the miles of prairie. By the middle of September the 

 weekly receipts of the farmers' company were running 

 to 744 cars. In 1907 they had handled about five per 

 cent, of the crop and seven and one-half per cent, of the 

 1 908 crop ; of the total number of cars so far inspected 



