326 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



" 'Agreed ; crops are heavy, and we shall have enough 

 to do.' 



" Business finished, the three enjoy sundry bottles of 

 good wine. The daily papers presently announce that 

 ' the trunk lines have agreed upon a new schedule of 

 rates for freight, which is, in effect, a trifling increase ; 



on grain, from for- 

 ty-five to fifty 

 cents from Chi- 

 cago to New York, 

 with rates to other 

 points in the usu- 

 al proportion.' 

 The conversation 

 was insignificant, 

 the increase 'tri- 

 fling/ But to the 

 farmers of the 

 Northwest, it 

 means that the 

 will of three men 

 has taken over 

 thirty millions 

 from the cash va- 

 lue of their pro- 

 ducts for that 



year, and five hundred millions from the actual value 

 of their farms. 



" The conversation is imaginary ; but the startling 

 facts upon which it is based are terribly real, as West- 

 ern farmers have learned. The few men who control 

 the great railway lines have it in their power to strip 

 Western agriculture of all its earnings, not after the 



BAKING THE RATES OF RAILROAD 

 FREIGHTS. 



