42 



He saw that no matter how much he produced there 

 Were always buyers, perhaps at ridiculous prices it is 

 true, and if there were buyers for all his produce it was 

 because there were consumers somewhere or the other in 

 the world. 



Those who did buy were the speculators. These, by 

 buying cheaply, and arranging the market to suit the 

 demand, by not offering the goods till they were asked 

 for, by storing them when there was no demand and 

 placing them little by little, actually maoe double the 

 profit of the farmer, who took all the trouble and risk 

 of producing the grain. 



The farmer, on the contrary, no sooner had har- 

 vested his crop than he rushed it off to market, and since 

 everyone harvested at more or less the same time, at the 

 same period every year the market was flooded with 

 supplies with a consequent reduction in the demand and 

 as a natural consequence, a lower price than he had been 

 led to expect. 



The question of storing his produce then became im- 

 perative, especially in years of abundance, which are 

 the years of little remuneration to the farmer. 



But it was discovered that mere storing did not solve 

 the problem; on the contrary it brought with it tremend- 

 ous difficulties. 



At first, efforts by the farmers towards holding back 

 the cereals for better prices were not attended with suc- 

 cess. 



It did not take long to reveal that storing had its 

 secrets; first the question of sound storing, then that of 

 remunerative storing, (of the profit at the end being 

 worth the trouble) and again that of the financial side, 

 of the huge sums in values locked up thereby and of the 

 debts and credits it involved for the farmers and the 

 grain trade generally. 



STORING BY THE FARMERS. 



Experience revealed that storing in sacks was im- 

 possible ; the money represented by the cost of thousands 

 of sacks lying idle was too serious a complication to actel 

 to that represented already by the grain itself. Then 

 the damages effected by insects, rats, etc., in the shedtt, 

 had to be taken into consideration, and the difficulties 

 of keeping the grain sound and uninfluenced by damp 

 or rot, even where well built sheds were provided on the 

 farms, were some of the primary difficulties which made 

 private storing impossible, or rather unprofitable. 



The losses from these sources were sufficient to draw 

 the attention of all the farmers to the fact that by hoM- 



