302 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



to human sustenance or comfort. Its object should 

 be Freight the rapid and vast increase of its trans- 

 portations, not extra profit on the articles transported. 

 But let its agents be ready to buy at fair prices what- 

 ever was offered, paying cash down, and pushing 

 everything purchased directly into market, so as to 

 have the money back to buy more with directly. The 

 Railroad Company, thus owning nearly everything 

 edible it brought into market, would buy and sell at 

 uniform prices, and not bid against itself, as a crowd 

 of hucksters and middlemen will often do. I am 

 confident that a Railroad that would inaugurate this 

 system on a right basis, saying to every farmer living 

 near it, " Grow whatever your soil is best adapted to, 

 and bring it to our station : there, you shall have cash 

 down for it, at the highest price we can afford to 

 give," would rapidly double and quadruple its 

 freights, and would thus build up a business which 

 has no parallel under the present system. 



It is urged, in opposition to this proposal, that a 

 Railroad so managed would monopolize markets, and 

 deal on its own terms with the producer and consum- 

 er. If there were but one railroad entering a great 

 city, and no other mode of reaching it, this objection 

 would be plausible, but not in the actual case. Who- 

 ever chose would be at liberty to start an opposition, 

 and to use the railroad or dispense with it as he 

 found advisable. 



