EXCHANGE AND DISTRIBUTION. 301 



have sold much better next week or the week after ; 

 but he could not afford to bring it to market and take 

 it back day after day, on the chance that the demand 

 for it would improve by-and-by. I judge that more 

 young men have on this account turned their backs 

 on farming, after a brief trial, than on any other. 

 They might have borne up against the shortness of 

 their crops, hoping for better luck next time ; but 

 the necessity for selling them for a price that would 

 not have reimbursed their cost, had they been ever so 

 luxuriant, utterly disheartens and alienates them. 



I preach no crusade against hucksters and middle- 

 men. I hold them, in the actual state of things, 

 benefactors to both producers and consumers. In so 

 far as they deal honestly and meet promptly their 

 obligations, they deserve commendation rather than 

 reproach. "What I urge is, that more economical and 

 efficient machinery of exchange and distribution 

 ought to be devised and set at work machinery that 

 would do all that is required at a moderate, reason- 

 able cost. 



I would like to see one of our solvent, well-man- 

 aged Railroads advertise that it would henceforth buy 

 at any of its stations all the farmers' produce that 

 might be offered, and pay the highest prices that the 

 state of the markets would justify. Let its agents 

 purchase whatever came along a basket of eggs, a 

 coop of chickens, a barrel of apples, a sack of beans, 

 a pail of currants anything that could be sold in 

 the city to which it runs, and which would conduce 



