44 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



munity markets where they may mata their bargain. 

 For most crops, the middleman is indispensable. He 

 should not be abolished but redirected. We shall 

 never have satisfactory methods of marketing farm 

 products until we have a thoroughly organized group 

 of producers, each group with its special product, 

 dealing directly with well organized groups of con- 

 sumers, or with well organized groups of middlemen 

 whose activities are regulated by the government in 

 the interests of both producers and consumers. 



6. The Farmer's Interest in Manufacture and Care. 

 The conservation and processing of farm products has 

 gone largely into the hands of commercial concerns. 

 The farmer, however, has a moral obligation to elim- 

 inate all wastes on the farm itself. Community enter- 

 prises looking toward the manufacture or preservation 

 of certain products, both for use in the community itself 

 and as a business venture, will probably increase. 

 There is a vast waste in double transportation; for 

 example, wheat is shipped one thousand miles for mill- 

 ing and the flour is brought back to the farm region 

 where the wheat was grown. 



7. Protection and Insurance. The farmer wages 

 a constant battle against insect pests, diseases of plants 

 and animals, unfavorable natural conditions such as 

 weeds, flood, drouth, frost, wind, hail, fire. Wide- 

 spread education, mutual insurance and cooperative 

 action seem to be the main solutions. One of the big- 

 gest problems of protection is whether it is possible to 

 insure the farmers to some extent against loss due to 

 inadequate knowledge of market conditions, such as 

 spoilage in food products, forced sales of products 

 due to lack of credit, and market gluts. 



8. The Re-investment of Farm Profits is not as yet 



