334 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



of land and producers of grain regard with constant 

 apprehension a power which may at any moment affect 

 the value of a thousand million bushels of cereals, and 

 of forty-four million acres of cultivated land. Even if 

 a change of five cents per cental does not affect the 

 whole crop so much as three cents per bushel in price, 

 it may take away all the profit all the reward of a 

 year's labor. And the same power may also raise rates 

 even more at pleasure. The farmers have been taught 

 that the cost of transportation depends upon the will of 

 a few men, and varies with their agreements or quarrels. 

 The quondam pedler of Vermont fell out with Van- 

 derbilt, and their quarrel was worth, during the year 

 1870, one-fifth of a cent per ton per mile to the farmers ; 

 $9,000,000 on the crop of wheat alone, if it had all been 

 shipped at the reduced rate. In July, 1872, somebody 

 raised the rates from the West five cents per cental. 

 His act cost the farmers millions of dollars. Is it 

 strange that our greatest industry grows restive under 

 fluctuations which it can neither foresee nor compre- 

 hend? Elsewhere the world moves. The beneficent 

 progress of civilization in other lands is toward cheaper 

 transportation and better wages for the producer. 

 Russia pushes railroads through her vast territory, in 

 order that her subjects may obtain at the Baltic and 

 Black Seas better pay for their industry. We cannot 

 maintain sufficient private markets of our own, nor 

 force upward prices in those great markets of the world 

 upon which ours depend. If, while the world makes 

 transportation cheaper, we make it more costly, the 

 loss will be our own. 



" This the farmer believes we are doing. He declares 

 that others who stand between him and the consumer, 



