THE FARMER AND HIS (COMPETITORS. 103 



tliat the competitor is in financial difficulty and striving to 

 realize, regardless of cost, or that he is producing cheaper 

 than himself, the latter involving his own ruin unless he can 

 himself reduce cost. He is, therefore, constantly on the alert 

 to discover the details of the manufacturing and business 

 methods of all his competitors in order to promptly avail 

 himself of any improvement which any one (5f them may 

 make. He is able to do this much easier than the farmer, 

 because he is himself, through his agents, the year round, in 

 close competition in all markets, and his place of business will 

 be in some populous center of intelligence. The majority of 

 farmers live in a rather isolated way, do not mingle freely 

 with well-informed business men, and make their principal 

 sales of produce but once a year, and they are, therefore^ 

 greatly handicapped in such efforts as they do make to inform 

 themselves in regard to markets and competition. Their 

 main reliance is the columns of the daily and agricultural 

 press, which are of very little value except as to conditions 

 affecting a few staple crops, such as cotton, grain, and, to a less 

 extent, tobacco and wool, which are the objects of speculation 

 on a large scale. Even as to these things the press obtains 

 very little information which has not been obtained by the 

 trade and used for its own purposes, and to the disadvantage 

 of the farmer, before publication. The journals of general 

 circulation do not obtain this information in advance because 

 it would cost too much. 



The farmer, also, is greatly hampered in ascertaining the 

 cost of his competitor's products because such costs vary so 

 greatly from year to year. It requires more labor than most 

 farmers are willing to bestow to ascertain their own yearly 

 costs of produce, much more to discover the costs of others; 

 and if by any means they may ascertain substantially the 

 cost of competing products raised in some distant section in a 

 given year, it may never be correct for any other year. 



The fact is it is far more difficult for a farmer to find out 

 what his competitors are doing than for merchants or manu- 

 facturers, and yet it is equally necessary. The competitors of 

 the American wheat farmer are, first, liis own neighbors, then 



