THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 321 



ment. Another consignment of corn netted the shippers 

 five cents a bushel, from which, however, was to be 

 deducted the price of the corn at the place of produc- 

 tion, which would entail a loss of ten or fifteen cents a 

 bushel. 



In some cases the farmers within twenty-five or thirty 

 miles of a convenient market in the West, have found 

 it cheaper to haul their grain to market in their own 

 wagons than to ship it by the railroads. 



Said the Hon. Amasa Walker, of Brookline, Mass., 

 in a speech delivered in Boston on the 1st of Septem- 

 ber, 1873 : " The farmer's products must be transported 

 a great distance, and they are heavy products, and it 

 takes a large part of what he can raise to pay the freight 

 and get his goods to market. You have, perhaps, heard 

 of the man who went out to Iowa and bought a lot of 

 corn for thirteen cents, and, selling it in Springfield, 

 Mass., for sixty-nine cents, made just one cent a bushel. 

 Now that is a very startling illustration, but no more 

 startling than true, of the manner in which the whole 

 thing appears. Now you will see why the farmers are 

 the first to move, because they are made so much more 

 interested than others by its taking such a larger por- 

 tion of what they can raise. For instance, a manufac- 

 turer will send on his goods West and pay not more 

 than five per cent. a twentieth or thirtieth part of 

 what the farmer pays on his products, and the differ- 

 ence is a very wide one." 



Said Mr. Stephen Smith, the Illinois farmer, speak- 

 ing for the men of his calling in his own State, recog- 

 nizing and pointing out the evils of railroad extortion : 

 " For the past three or four years the conviction has 

 been gradually forcing itself upon us that something 

 21 



