THE FARMER AND HIS COMPETITORS. 105 



on a large scale, for distant shipment — truck farming — the 

 farmer in Florida, for example, needs specially to know the 

 conditions existing in Mississippi, Texas, California, and other 

 states ada[)ted to raising early vegetables. In this case the 

 farmer's relation to his neighbor as a competitor is entirely 

 overshadowed by their greater common interest in knowing 

 what is going on in distant competing districts. So far 

 from competing it will usually pay them far better to unite to 

 incur the expense of finding out what distant competitors are 

 doing, and to deal more effectively with transportation com- 

 panies, selling agencies, supply dealers, and others with whom 

 they are all competing for the possession of money. It is 

 these conditions which supply the sound logical basis for co- 

 operation, which- will be fully discussed hereafter. For the 

 present I wish only to say that it is by cooperative effort only 

 that any ordinary farmer can ever expect to obtain from year 

 to year the accurate detailed information in regard to crops 

 and markets which he needs to intelligently meet distant 

 competitors. Except as he is willing and able to cooperate 

 with his few neighboring competitors, he must usually remain 

 in substantial ignorance of the doings of his distant and more 

 dangerous competitors — more dangerous because in the aggre- 

 gate they constitute the controlling factors of the situation, 

 upon which any single district will usually have very little 

 effect. 



The object of this chapter is gained if it has been made 

 clear that the farmer as a competitor needs to know the condi- 

 tions of all others in his industry for the purpose of thereby 

 improving his own practice, and that such information as he 

 needs will always cost money, which will be a legitimate and 

 necessary expense in his business. That farmers are enabled 

 to live at all under their usual slipshod methods of dealing 

 with competition and competitors fully proves that the farmer's 

 lot is far easier and happier than that of other men, for in no 

 other important occupation would it be possible to continue in 

 business with so little information about competitors. 



