462 AGRICULTURAL CREDIT. DAVIDSON. 



produced will find a ready market. It is true that they do find 

 a market, for man must live on the fruits of the soil ; and there 

 is a pretty sure market for the staple agricultural products. 

 Except on staple crops, banks lending to farmers are making 

 speculative loans, for the market is not assured ; and even with 

 staple crops, there are greater risks in agriculture than in manu- 

 factures, owing to seasons, etc. 



It is true that loans are sometimes made on other security 

 than the property in which the loan is to be invested. The 

 bank may lend on the basis of personal earnings from other 

 sources, or it may lend on the security of character or of other 

 property ; but such loans are likely to be small in amount, and 

 the ordinary type of business loan is made on the security of the 

 property in which the loan is to be invested, and on the judg- 

 ment that the product of the investment will find a ready sale. 

 When the producer is well known in business circles, and his 

 judgment is accepted readily regarding market conditions, the 

 producer even of raw materials may have little difficulty in 

 finding accommodation at the banks. The lumber operator is 

 not, in many respects, in a much better position than the farmer. 

 He, too, requires advances for long periods, and he, too, has, as 

 the security he offers, a raw product on which no judgment but 

 his own has been expressed ; and his industry is to an even 

 greater extent than the farmer's the plaything of the seasons. 

 But the operator has little difficulty in getting the necessary 

 advances, even from the commencement of his season's opera- 

 tions, and in getting larger and larger advances as his material 

 product comes nearer to his market; for he is generally a man 

 of capital, known in the business community and accepted as a 

 man on whose judgment reliance can be placed. But the farmer 

 is not a man of capital, and the banks have no confidence in his 

 individual judgment, for they do not know him. And so the 

 poor farmer gets none. 



It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that the banks are not 

 animated by any hostility to the farmer. The dreaded " money 

 power " is the creation of politicians and demagogues of the 



