WORK DONE OR PROJECTED 163 



order to take advantage of the lowest available railway 

 rates, they were simply advising them to do what had 

 already long been done by enterprising middlemen who 

 bought up the produce from a number of growers, graded 

 and packed it, and sent it away in the quantities which 

 allowed of consignment by lower rates than the individual 

 grower could get for his own particular lot. It was not 

 only, therefore, that foreign produce was carried by rail at a 

 lower rate, by reason of its bulk, etc., than the British 

 farmers' small lots, but the same was the case, also, and for 

 exactly the same reasons, in regard to collections of British 

 produce, grouped by British middlemen. 



So the obvious course for the producers to adopt was to 

 be found in combination with a view to their doing for 

 themselves much, if not most, of what the middleman was 

 doing, and putting all they could of the intermediate profits 

 into their own pockets ; but this meant, not simply com- 

 bination for transport, but combination throughout the full 

 and complete list of essentials specified above. 



That this result could only be brought about by such a 

 body as the Agricultural Organisation Society was self- 

 evident ; yet the difficulties to be overcome might well 

 have been regarded as almost insurmountable. 



On the one hand there was the rooted prejudice of the 

 agricultural mind to all innovations ; there was the inveterate 

 suspicion of any new ideas coming from the towns ; there 

 was the habitual distrust of neighbours and competitors. 



On the other hand there was the fact that, as the direct 

 result of the inadequate attention the farmer had paid to 

 the science of marketing in the past, there had grown up 

 those powerful vested interests which, though flourishing 

 upon his output, might well oppose the idea of surrendering 

 any of the advantages they had obtained. 



Influenced by considerations such as these, and ever 

 bearing in mind the unfortunate trading experiences of 

 Lord Winchilsea, with their tragic consequences in helping 

 to bring his career to an untimely end, the Agricultural 

 Organisation Society decided from the outset against any 



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