MEDIEVAL AND MODERN PRODUCE MARKETS 833 



were raised on the farm. To-day, the farm is devoted to more 

 highly specialized agriculture. In some places, the agricultural 

 community is actually dependent on central markets for some 

 means of subsistence and for most general articles of consump- 

 tion. There is more need of ready money. Postponement of sale 

 by the farmer is less feasible than in the past. He desires to sell 

 his crop immediately after the harvest. Professional traders must 

 thus provide means during the harvest period for purchasing the 

 great staple crops almost entire, and with their bankers they must 

 carry the financial burden until the stocks can be sold. This 

 function of the middlemen is essentially new because of changed 

 conditions in the marketing of staples. The significance of this 

 function has not been adequately appreciated. 



The modern methods of marketing the cereal crops create 

 technical problems of conditioning. If the grain is cured before 

 it is threshed, there is little danger of trouble from overheating 

 and deterioration. The older methods thus made it possible to 

 dispense with much elaborate curing that is indispensable when 

 the crop is marketed rapidly and massed in elevators. The value 

 of all these products is profoundly affected by the care with 

 which they are handled in the elevators, so that the middleman 

 finds a new source of gain in the manipulation of the product 

 during storage. 



Increased freedom to speculate has in fact narrowed the range 

 of speculation. The activities of speculative traders are more evi- 

 dent, of course ; much that was concealed is now given wide pub- 

 licity concentration has brought together in specific exchanges 

 activities that were formerly spread at large through the store- 

 houses of producing regions or receiving ports. The increased 

 visibility of speculation disposes us to think of our age as char- 

 acteristically speculative, and the change in law lends support to 

 such a view. But such a generalization is superficial. The change 

 in the technique of trade cannot be described in such terms. 

 It is an error to say that mediaeval trade was largely non- 

 speculative and modern trade highly speculative. The speculative 

 elements in mediaeval trade were not very frankly recognized, 

 but they were present. The achievement of modern commercial 



