112 AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS. 



lating medium of the country to forty per cent of its present volume, 

 and as a necessary and unavoidable consequence reduce the price of 

 everything in nearly the same proportion. There is then absolutely 

 no way of avoiding the conclusion that such class possesses the power 

 to produce a general rise or fall of fifty per cent in prices, at pleasure. 

 Those who realize this state of affairs contend that it is a waste of 

 energy for all the farmers in this great land to combine and co-operate 

 to raise the prices of a given product when, if their most sanguine hopes 

 were realized, they would not augment the price over twenty-five per 

 cent, while at the same time representatives of another class of citizens 

 of this country could receive instructions from one office in a single 

 hour which would depress prices fifty per cent. In fact, owing to the 

 inflexible rigidness of such a system, the fluctuation in general prices is 

 very great between the different seasons of the same year, and for the 

 following reasons : Agriculture presents, during the last four months of 

 every year, an actual tangible addition to the wealth of the nation, equal 

 to five times the gross volume of all the money in actual circulation in 

 the country ; and all this agricultural product comes on the market to 

 purchase money for the use of the agriculturist. Now it stands to 

 reason that such an increase in the demand for money, when there is 

 no increase in the supply, must augment its price, which is its pur- 

 chasing power, and which means diminished prices for everything 

 else. Now if, in addition to this powerful tendency, a certain class 

 possesses the power to diminish the supply at that season, in the face of 

 the augmented demand, the tendency to a rise in the purchasing power 

 of money becomes certain and irresistible. The experience of every 

 man in the agricultural districts of the West and South has no doubt 

 often shown him a difference of fifty per cent or more in the price of 

 an article during the fall season and the spring. And it is universally 

 known that, in pursuance of the above phenomena, general prices are 

 much lower in the fall than in the spring season. Great respect is due 

 to the teachings of those who contend that the greatest power being 

 exercised to depress agriculture to-day emanates from unjust regulations 

 governing the relations between the different classes of citizens ; and if, 

 by a united effort, we can secure the correction of the evils they point 

 out, we will pave a way for the certain triumph of our business efforts, 

 and the enjoyment of more satisfactory and prosperous social relations. 

 It seems to me that there is much good in the teachings of all three of 

 these methods, and that it will be found a duty of this body to en- 

 courage the effort to improve in farming from a technical standpoint, 

 as a result of the pleasant social reunions enjoyed in the subordinate 



