10 Cooperation in Agriculture 



ing and in protecting himself against aggression. The 

 experience of the present time shows that these agencies, 

 when left unchecked, often become predatory and exploit 

 both the producer and the consumer at the expense of 

 the legitimate share in the nations' prosperity to which 

 each is entitled. Under these conditions, the economic 

 loss to agriculture retards the best development of country 

 life. 



DISSATISFACTION AMONG THE FARMERS 



The producers are not unmindful of the position in 

 which the organization of all kinds of industry has placed 

 them. The adjustment between the producer, the trans- 

 portation agencies, the many kinds of middlemen and the 

 consumers is a subject of endless conflict and is a leading 

 feature of the high cost of living and of other present- 

 day problems. Through all the adjustment of the past, 

 there has appeared a rural discontent decreasing or in- 

 creasing simultaneously with the prosperity of the country. 

 There has been a deep-seated conviction among the farm- 

 ers that in the development of our modern industrial 

 methods, the agricultural industries have had their effi- 

 ciency impaired, that the systems of distributing farm 

 crops as well as the sale of farmers' supplies are so handled 

 that the individual farmer who acts alone pays the highest 

 price for what he purchases and receives the lowest price 

 for what he sells; while the distributing agencies, the 

 railroads, the middlemen, and the retailers receive a 

 maximum return on their labor and capital, or at least 

 have organized the distributing system in such a compli- 

 cated and extravagant way that the producer is prevented 



