230 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



his just reward. In general the present system of dis- 

 tribution of soil-grown products is the main handicap 

 of the American farmer. About this cluster many sub- 

 sidiary difficulties. The system also illustrates another 

 serious disadvantage. Farming originally was an in- 

 dividual business. As a producing factor it is likely to 

 remain so to a very large extent; but gradually the 

 farmer's market has come to be a highly organized, 

 widespread and complex affair. The single farmer 

 finds himself dealing in both purchase and sale with 

 great combinations of men and capital, and often in 

 competition with millions of fellow farmers similarly 

 situated. His products are bought, manufactured, 

 stored, transported, sold to jobbers and to retailers, 

 and even to ultimate consumers, by powerfully organ- 

 ized agencies. These agencies are financed by banks 

 whose interest in the farmer is only incidental. The 

 place of foodstuffs in foreign trade is rarely determined 

 by the farmers themselves. And a crowning handi- 

 cap is that the farmer is seldom represented, even in- 

 directly, in those groups that determine governmental, 

 business or social arrangements affecting his well-being 

 or in which he has the interest common to citizenship 

 in a democracy. It would be utterly misleading to 

 assert that the American farmer has been neglected by 

 his government, but it is perfectly evident that govern- 

 ment has quite failed at two points. It has not that 

 close working contact with all the interests of all the 

 farmers that it should have, and it has not correlated 

 even its own activities into a large, far-sighted, well in- 

 formed, unified program of endeavor for rural im- 

 provement. 



