RISE AND DEVELOPMENT 7 



the methods of production due to the teachings of Liebig 

 and others, following on the discoveries made by them in 

 what they showed to be the science, and not simply the 

 Practice, of agriculture. 



Owing to the more intensive forms of cultivation which 

 thus came into vogue, there was brought about, on the one 

 hand, a greatly increased demand for artificial manures and 

 other requisites, and, on the other hand, the creation of an 

 army of manufacturers, agents and middlemen who, in 

 seeking to supply this demand, regarded agriculture from a 

 purely business point of view, and were apt to look upon 

 the farmer as someone whom, in the new conditions of 

 production by which he was faced, they could exploit to 

 their own advantage. 



The advance in agricultural science thus meant for the 

 farmer that not only must he have the capital with which 

 to purchase the requisites in question — so that here there 

 came still further reasons for agricultural credit — but there 

 was the further material danger that if the manufacturers 

 of these requisites were none too honest and reasonable, and 

 if the middlemen dealers passing them on to him were alike 

 ignorant and unscrupulous, then, left to his own resources, 

 he might have to pay an excessive price for raw materials 

 of inferior quality, and also eventually gain an inadequate 

 return from his crops. 



These results were, in fact, experienced in Germany almost 

 as soon as the system of scientific production came into 

 vogue ; and the earliest measures adopted to check them 

 took the form of " control," or " test " stations set up by 

 certain non-trading agricultural associations for the purpose 

 of analysing or otherwise testing the commodities in ques- 

 tion. This arrangement answered when the buyer himself 

 sent in the wares he had purchased, but was regarded with 

 suspicion if the middleman claimed to have had the tests 

 made before the sale. 



When, therefore, the Raiffeisen banks began to spread in 

 Germany, the further expedient was resorted to by them of 

 arranging for the purchase of agricultural necessaries by or 



