CHAPTER III. 



TRUSTS FOR THE FARMERS. 



There is quite a prevalent feeling among farmers 

 that, if trusts and combines are to be the order of the 

 future, the farmer may as well enjoy whatever benefits 

 can be derived from them ; that many lines of the 

 farmer's productions might well come into combination 

 to the farmer's advantage, such as the milk business, the 

 marketing of butter, and the like. Their opinion is this : 

 that the services of middlemen may be dispensed with, 

 prices made steady, and a profit from their industry al- 

 ways made secure, resulting in an advantage to the buyer 

 as well as to the seller. This, however, has been the 

 argument of all who are about entering the charmed 

 circle of the combine. It is desirable for all farmers to 

 give the character of the trust or combine a searching 

 examination, that they may know whether they may so 

 far countenance the principle of the combine as to de- 

 pend upon such means for benefiting themselves. The 

 indirect consequences, as well as the remote results, 

 should be well weighed. However just and honorable 

 may be the motives which prompt men to enter into an 

 association, the object of which is to make safe their 

 position in transactions with their fellow-men who may 

 not be placed in equally secure positions themselves, and 

 upon whom the means for the success of their enterprise 



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