92 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [rub. Doc. 



THE RIGHTS OF THE PRODUCER IN THE CONSUMER'S 



DOLLAR. 



BY DR. G. M. TWITCHELL, AUBURN, MB. 



History is making rapidly, and no man feels the jolt more 

 forcibly than the observing, thinking worker on the farm. 

 Old-time conceptions and standards have been shattered and 

 new and complex relations force themselves in the path of 

 the average man. Competition, which wirs once considered 

 the life of trade, is now a thing of the past, and the gentle- 

 manly agreement faces buyer and seller. 



So thoroughly are all the avenues of trade organized that 

 in most remote sections we touch great combinations and 

 feel the force of that old-time saying that " in union there 

 is strength." In the rapid increase of urban population 

 there has necessarily followed a division and subdivision of 

 channels of trade and a multiplication of hands through 

 which, under old-time methods, products must pass to reach 

 the consumer. JSTaturally these hands are sufficiently muci- 

 laginous to catch and hold some portion, to the loss of the 

 producer and burden of the consumer. Inevitably the chief 

 point of attack has been along the line of least resistance, 

 arid the poAver of a combination or corporation against indi- 

 vidual units has given a control intensely oppressive and 

 steadily increasing. Thus the farmer has been the greater 

 sufferer. All the while it will be well to remember that these 

 mills, factories, corporations and combinations produce 

 nothing. It is their province to change the character or form 

 of crude products, and thereby add to their value and the 



