41 



one of the fundamental bases of North American rural 

 prosperity has been the arranging of the supply to fit 

 more or Jess the demand. 



It is impossible to arrange beforehand what the 

 harvest is to be, and what prices shall rule for the com- 

 ing year, this depends too much on influence beyond 

 the control of man, but it- is possible to fix more or less 

 so that what is harvested is disposed of according to the 

 demand of the consumers, and at the prices they are 

 willing to pay. 



The American farmer, launched on a plan of enorm- 

 ous production far in excess of local needs, was obliged 

 to sell the large quantities he produced at whatever they 

 could fetch: since the market price is governed by the 

 quantity of surplus, that is to say by the quantity re- 

 maining over and above, that required by the clients for 

 immediate consumption. The more he produced the 

 greater was the reduction in the price of his wares. 



The cereal export trade established itself automati- 

 cally as a safety valve for the surplus production, but al- 

 though the question of disposing of his cereals was ap- 

 parently solved, not so the question of remunerative 

 prices for the grower. 



PRICE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PRODUCTION. 



It did not take the average farmer long to discover 

 that the question of price was actually more important 

 than that of production. 



Undeniably he could influence prices by limiting his 

 sowings, but this was a heroic measure, and unless all 

 united to do the same (of doubtful benefit individually) 

 there remained the problem of what to do with the land 

 he had bought or rented, with tlrfe machinery he had ac- 

 cumulated, with his own energies and those of his men. 

 The limiting of his labour was in truth no solution, for 

 unless he knew beforehand what sort of weather he was 

 going to have, it might very well occur that his harvest 

 would be low in a year of high prices. 



The fact that normally only three out of five years 

 are really good from the farmer's standpoint, with one 

 indifferent and the fifth bad, prevents the farmer re- 

 gulating beforehand the amount of his production. 



The resolution then lay with the method of selling* 

 the production. If he produced much the prices were 

 low, if he produced little the prices were high, but as he 

 could not arrange the question of little production there 

 lemained only that of arranging the methods of market- 

 ing the big production. 



