288 THE \E]V AGRICULTURE. 



relates to direct buying and selling. The associations which are 

 now being formed for the purpose lend themselves to a com- 

 paratively limited membership. In New Jersey there is a soci- 

 ety of a score or more of farmers who, instead, of buying 

 their fertilizer from established dealers, order the unground 

 ingredients by the car load, grind and mix it themselves, and 

 thus, besides the satisfaction of knowing at first hand pre- 

 cisely the composition of the fertilizer they are using, supply 

 themselves at a saving of 40 per cent, on manufacturers' 

 prices. For such a purpose as this, it is only necessary that 

 the association 'should have a sufficient membership to enable 

 the buying of the raw material in wholesale quantities. In 

 Kansas there is an association of. some 500 members who 

 own a store and a small grain elevator. Each place is con- 

 ducted by a superintendent who serves at a salary. It is im- 

 material whether the superintendent be a farmer or not. The 

 one requisite is that he understand his business and conduct it 

 in the interests of the association. The store sells its goods 

 to the farmer at a very small advance over wholesale prices, 

 while the farmer sells his grain to the elevator at the highest 

 market, with the profits of the middleman eliminated. The 

 consequence is that the membership constantly buy at lower 

 prices and sell at higher prices than the outside farmer is 

 able to do. It has been a hard struggle. Various great cor- 

 porate interests, as the railway company, the farm implement 

 companies for the little store is a regular department store 

 and handles everything the constituency requires and other 

 powerful bodies whose interests were invaded, have threatened 

 and fought it, but it has been invariably victorious and is at 

 present in a highly prosperous and flourishing condition. To 

 what extent this practice is to become common no man may 



