Alfalfa in Kansas. 447 



THE KANSAS CITY HAY MARKET. 



By RICHARD PRIDE, in The American Elevator and Grain Trade. 



The Kansas City hay yards! I had never seen them, nor had any 

 idea of what such a place would be. My hay had always been delivered 

 in a dinky cart by a German person who stuttered, so that conversation 

 on the subject had been discouraging 1 , even if I had given it thought, 

 which I had n't. But here was a new aspect of hay. In front of me 

 stretched long wagon lanes, flanked on each side by freight cars, hun- 

 dreds of them in solid ranks of commercial power. Many of the cars 

 were open and in front of each door was a high pile of bales with mov- 

 ing figures on every pile, hauling, checking, marketing, each doing his 

 part in the complex system of the greatest hay market in the world. 



KANSAS CITY THE GATEWAY FOR HAY. 



How does Kansas City happen to occupy this exalted place in the hay 

 trade of the country? Replies came eagerly from many quarters, and 

 indeed the explanation is simple and quite obvious. It is on the thresh- 

 old of the prairie, on the very shore of that sea of grass which feeds so 

 much of the live stock of the world. It is in fact like the hub of a great 

 wheel, whose spokes on one side represent the lines of hay cars from the 

 farm to the market, and on the other side the great arteries of trade 

 which carry out the hay, north, east and south, to the consuming centers 

 of the world. The rim of this wheel is bounded on the west by the 

 Rocky Mountains, and its distributing side is bounded only by the 

 farthest market where hay is needed. There is no mystery about it, for 

 Nature picked the place long before man saw the design and set about 

 improving it. 



But it is one thing to have opportunity knock at the door, and quite 

 another to open the portal and show it hospitality. .And this brings us 

 to a brief consideration of the Kansas City Hay Dealers' Association. 



HISTORY OF THE MARKET. 



The hay trade of the country as a whole has been curiously indifferent 

 to the power of cooperative effort, particularly in the matter of market 

 organization. In this Kansas City stands out a conspicuous exception, 

 as for years it stood alone as our only organized exclusive hay market. 

 In this forehandedness as much as in its geographical location lies its 

 preeminence. 



A receiving market stands or falls on a single word : that word is 

 "service." To the extent that it can give shippers and buyers good serv- 

 ice in rates, weights, inspection and prices will it progress, and no 

 farther. This service can not be brought to its highest point of efficiency 

 by individual effort, and twenty-two years ago the hay dealers at Kan- 

 sas City realized the fact. 



On April 10, 1893, about fifty dealers, responding to a call from a 

 few progressive spirits, met at the Midland Hotel and organized the 

 Kansas City Hay Dealers' Association. J. B. Spellman, the pioneer 



