THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 379 



" ' Of course I do/ was the reply. 'They are a great 

 deal higher than when the roads were first built, and 

 they had far less business then than they now have. 

 Their whole policy is to take every cent that we far- 

 mers can pay. They want us to go on raising wheat, 

 ' because if we should stop they would of course lose 

 business, but they are not willing that we should make 

 any profit. If the crop is an abundant one they put up 

 the rates of freight. You've noticed the reports in the 

 papers this week that it is proposed to raise the rates on 

 all the Wisconsin roads. At the old rates, with the 

 amount of wheat to be moved, they would make more 

 money than during any previous year. But they don't 

 propose to let us farmers have any of the benefit of the 

 good crop if they can help it.' 



" ' How much do they charge for taking wheat from 

 your place to Milwaukee ? ' 



" ' Ten cents a bushel for a distance of about sixty 

 miles. When the roads were first built they used to 

 carry it for six. But we have other grounds of com- 

 plaint besides high charges. Our grain is handled too 

 much between the producer and the consumer, and 

 everybody who touches it takes four or five cents a 

 bushel he expects to make a living from it. It ought 

 to go directly from the farmer to the seaboard, and then 

 we should save ten or twelve cents a bushel. Again, it 

 makes very little difference how good the quality of the 

 grain we send to Milwaukee or Chicago is, we never 

 get credit for anything but " number two." A neighbor 

 of mine shipped seven car loads of wheat to Milwaukee 

 this week, not a bushel of which weighed less than 

 sixty pounds, and much of it went sixty-one and sixty- 

 one and a half; it was sound and clean, and was " num- 



