STUDIES IN EGG-MARKETING 795 



which the consumers are anxious to get and because the organ- 

 ization of means of conveyance renders it possible to bring such 

 products to their destination without delay and with proper care 

 in transit. The part played by the organization of the transporta- 

 tion service is fundamental, therefore, in the development of the 

 marketing facilities for any community. 



We are now in a position to understand how it was the 

 gradual improvement of transportation facilities that paved the 

 way for the kind of relief the farmer was seeking. This was 

 accomplished in two ways. It made possible an expansion and 

 reorganization of the local market. It also led to the establish- 

 ment of better connections with the primary markets and to the 

 rise, in later years, of a new form of organization which has 

 greatly modified the farmer's local market. 



The first relief to the farmer of the Northwest from the lim- 

 itations imposed by his relations to the country merchant did not 

 come through changes in methods of egg-marketing. The old 

 method of barter and its consequent dependence upon the country 

 store continued in the marketing of eggs long after the farmer 

 had devised another means of improvement. Moreover, the un- 

 certainty of a one-crop system was not in itself sufficient to cause 

 farmers to turn to other lines of work. It was a new difficulty 

 which had gradually arisen and which compelled the farmer to 

 mend his ways. Large numbers would undoubtedly have con- 

 tinued in the old and beaten path, facing the uncertainty of the 

 fall crop as well as the limitations of the country-store market, 

 if they had not confronted the new difficulty. As the land be- 

 came relatively scarcer and therefore higher in price, the farmer 

 found at the same time that his method of continuous cropping 

 had led to the spreading of obnoxious weeds as well as to a de- 

 pletion of the fertility of the soil and to a consequent falling off 

 in the yield per acre. Such a method of abusing the land could 

 not continue. Only after this had gone on for some time, how- 

 ever, and after the pressure had become severe, was the farmer 

 compelled through stern need to attempt some form of readjust- 

 ment. It was under conditions such as these that the farmer 

 sought relief by resorting to live-stock farming. 



