No. 4.J FRUIT GROWING. 71 



You have all heard of the Standard Oil Company, — what 

 " a wicked combination " it is, and of " the great harm it is 

 doing to the people of the country." Well, it is a terrible 

 monopoly, there is no question about that ; it has starved 

 out a great many of the small operators and many have 

 suffered by it, while some of the men concerned in it have 

 made enormous fortunes, some of which money is perhaps 

 used to advantage and some of it poorly ; but there was 

 never a time when we could buy good and pure oil as cheap 

 as to-day. Ever since the Standard Oil Company was 

 organized, good and pure burning oil has been growing 

 cheaper and cheaper all the time, so that consumers through- 

 out the whole of the United States are benefited by that. 

 Yet w^e hear complaints of their rolling up their millions. I 

 say that it is just that co-operation and consolidation which 

 has enabled them to do it. When there were hundreds of 

 little oil refineries in the country, all the waste coming from 

 the manufacture lay in })iles here and there all over the 

 country; and when the Standard Oil Company got hold 

 of the business of refining and consolidated the works they 

 did not know what to do with these piles of waste. They 

 had to do something with it, and with that accumulation of 

 capital they could afford to hire expert chemists, and they 

 did hire, as I am informed, twenty men, none of them with 

 a salary of less than $2,500 a year, just to work over 

 that mass of rubl)ish and see what there was in it, if any- 

 thing, that was valuable ; and to-day there are over two 

 hundred distinct articles of commerce being sold on the 

 market which are the products of those waste heaps. There 

 is an enormous profit there, and we are getting better and 

 cheaper oil. I am not here to uphold that trust, I am not 

 here as its advocate, but it shows what can be done 1)y 

 co-operation. 



Of course I do not look at this thing as if we were going 

 to rush into co-operation. Farmers do not go off in that 

 way. There is an independence in farm life that men 

 love, — an independence that can be found nowhere else. 

 I like to see an independent man, I like to see an inde- 

 pendent farmer ; l5ut are we not likely to carry that idea of 

 independence a little too far? While we can " go it alone," 



