98 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



Controlling the cold-storage plants, they are able 

 to buy and store when the farmer is necessitous, 

 and then, having secured control of the market, they 

 boost the price. There is no single trust-controlled 

 industry in the countiy that is subject to as many 

 different kinds of monopoly as is food, and in none 

 of them has there been so much to discourage pro- 

 duction. 



The same conditions prevail as to cereal products. 

 Scattered all over the country are grain-elevators 

 and terminals. These, too, are privately owned, 

 frequently by the directors and stockholders of the 

 railroads. Into these elevators the grain of the 

 farmer goes while waiting shipment. Here the 

 grain is graded and its price fixed by rules estab- 

 lished by the warehouses and millers. The farmers 

 of the West are compelled to market their grain 

 through these elevators just as the cattleman must 

 market his cattle through the packing-houses. The 

 methods employed by the grain exchanges, packers, 

 and warehousemen are desciibed in other chap- 

 ters. 



Closely linked with all these agencies are the 

 banks of Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and 

 the other food-terminal cities. The banks have 

 branches or connections over the West which make 

 loans to the farmers and the cattlemen. Through 

 the interlocking interests of the middlemen and the 

 banks, the producers are compelled to sell when the 



