THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 317 



their exorbitant freight charges. So burdensome were 

 the exactions of the roads that there was a general 

 outcry from the entire community against the outrage. 

 Said the Secretary of the State Agricultural Society of 

 Iowa, in his report for 1862: "Our great national 

 highway to the ocean for two years has been closed, 

 and we have been left to the tender mercies of relent- 

 less gamblers in railroad stocks. With facilities alto- 

 gether inadequate to carry the marketable products of 

 the teeming West, they have taken advantage of the 

 necessities of the people to make one advance after 

 another in their tariff of charges, until it now costs, in 

 some instances, three times as much to carry our grain 

 to market as it does to produce it." 



In the ten years that have gone by since this com- 

 plaint was made, neither Iowa nor any of the States 

 have experienced any relief from the evils referred to. 

 New roads have been built, but the rates have remained 

 high. They have even grown higher. In a season of 

 scarcity they are sufficient to throw a gloom over the 

 entire farming interest; and when such a magnificent 

 yield as that of 1872 blesses the country, the general 

 joy of the agricultural community is. embittered by a 

 strong advance in freights. The roads combine .against 

 the farmers, be the season good or bad. The grain of 

 the West must go to market, and the roads combine to 

 demand what they please for its transportation. The 

 farmers find that to get the product of one acre of corn 

 to market, they must pay the railroad the product of 

 three acres. The reader can easily calculate the result. 

 A prominent farmer in Iowa recently declared to a cor* 

 respondent of the New York Tribune that if the cost of 

 producing grain was as great in Iowa as in the States 



