THE FARMER'S MARKET 95 



shrivels up in your sight so that you feel ashamed of 

 owning it before he gets through his criticisms. Of 

 course these criticisms are far from being true, but not 

 being an expert yourself, you do not know how to meet 

 them. He asks you a price and you name what you 

 think you should have and no more. He names, in re- 

 ply, a price fifteen or twenty per cent less. You be- 

 come a helpless victim to his critical study of your 

 herd. You refuse his offer. Another buyer comes and 

 the same program is enacted. Even a third or fourth 

 may come. By this time you realize that you are help- 

 less. You must either take the chances of shipping 

 the cattle yourself and thus becoming a helpless victim 

 far from home, or of surrendering at discretion. You 

 will find so little difference in the various offers that 

 you are almost led to believe that the buyers are in a 

 trust and are leagued together for the purpose of forc- 

 ing the price down. 



In the particular instance to which I refer, my steers 

 were of a very fine quality. They weighed even heavier 

 than I had anticipated, having an average weight of 

 1,315 pounds. In Chicago on the day that I sold my 

 cattle, steers of this weight were selling at from 8.75 

 to 9.25 cents a pound. A thousand miles east of Chi- 

 cago the market would naturally be higher. For in- 

 stance, in an untied market like that of wheat, where 

 the standard price is well known, the price per bushel 

 in Baltimore is from 4 to 6 cents higher than in Chi- 

 cago. On the twelfth of September, when I sold my 

 fat cattle, I should have received a higher price than 

 9 cents a pound. In point of fact, I sold one steer for 

 8 cents a pound and 32 for 7%o cents per pound. Of 

 course I have no means of knowing what profit the 

 broker made on these steers, but it seems perfectly cer- 



