1 6 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



But the farmer's independence is not so one-sided when he 

 ceases to be a self-sufficing farmer and becomes a commercial 

 farmer ; that is, when he ceases to live directly upon the prod- 

 ucts of his farm and begins to live upon the profits of farming. 

 To be sure he is still compelled to watch the weather. Wet 

 and dry seasons continue to affect his crops ; disease, blight, 

 and pests still attack them, and storms still destroy them ; but 

 he is now learning how to reduce their power to do him injury. 

 He is learning to drain his land and to adapt his methods of 

 cultivation to the character of the season, to spray and use other 

 means of preventing injury by pests ; but he is still, and must 

 continue to be, in more direct and immediate contact with the 

 varying and uncertain manifestations of nature's power than 

 the members of any other class. On the other hand, the fact 

 that the farmer is coming to live upon the profits of farming, 

 rather than upon the products themselves, increases his depend- 

 ence upon the markets and market conditions. Anything, there- 

 fore, which affects his customers and their power to purchase, 

 affects him also. 



At the same time, even merchants and manufacturers are 

 coming to realize, as the railroads and financial interests have 

 long realized, a vital dependence upon those weather conditions 

 which affect farm crops. In our interlocking industrial system 

 no large interest can be seriously affected without also affecting 

 many others in some degree. A financial writer in one of our 

 leading reviews wrote, a few years ago, as follows : 



That estimates of the outturn of home and foreign harvests should at 

 this season of the year be awaited with interest is perfectly natural. Har- 

 vest results provide the one essential factor in economic and industrial 

 progress which is wholly beyond the control of man. Human sagacity may 

 insure wise currency legislation ; it may increase the output of gold ; it may 

 avoid political complications ; it may develop existing trade at home ; it 

 may create new trade abroad ; but it cannot create abundant harvests or 

 prevent a crop failure, upon which alternative, at certain junctures, nearly 



