THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FARM 



flour, provisions, dry goods, clothing — saw that 

 the farmers were now the only firm in the 

 region, for they had put the greedy merchant 

 to flight by refusing to be bled by him longer, 

 and the wholesalers wanted this trade. Every- 

 body saw the point. 



Now these five hundred farmers had five hun- 

 dred farms. They were worth, on an average, — 

 so well developed were their farms and so 

 stable were farm values, — at least ten thousand 

 dollars each. Most of them were out of debt. 

 So the new firm had a capital back of it of five 

 millions of dollars, a tidy sum in case of a 

 storm. The firm could afford to be indepen- 

 dent. 



Unfair monopolies growled and showed their 

 teeth. Various enemies tried various tricks — 

 mean and underhanded, tricks of trade, tricks 

 of the market — but the farmers were not so 

 easily taken in after all. At first they were in 

 doubt as to whether or not they would succeed. 

 Other firms fail; indeed, some statistician had 

 shown that ninety-five per cent of all success- 

 ful business men had failed some time or other; 

 so they might fail. But they did not. Their 

 business slowly increased. They adopted one 



369 



