ELEMKXTS OK |)AN(iKll IN' ( 0( H'KI; ATIOX. 235 



to business transactions outside the immediate operations ui' 

 the farm is astonishing. The merchant is j)erhaps as ignorant 

 of farming operations as the farmer is of trade, but he has no 

 need to be otherwise, as be deals only with completed prod- 

 ucts, and need not concern himself with the processes of 

 production — although to be sure he is a better merchant if he 

 does understand them — but the farmer who must bear all the 

 risk of production is vitally interested in the mercantile con- 

 ditions and operations affecting the distribution of his product. 



I can best illustrate my meaning by an example. The 

 fruit-growers of California are engaged in a very risky busi- 

 ness; their product, if sold fresh, is perishable; if sold dried, is 

 semi-perishable; they are thousands of miles from market, 

 and, on nearly all their products, are exposed to competition 

 from other districts or other countries having cheaper laboi' 

 and cheaper transportation to the great markets; their busi- 

 ness requires far more capital than ordinary farming, and 

 their investments require careful attention and constant 

 increase for years before yielding any returns whatever; they 

 are probably the most intelligent body of agriculturists in tlie 

 world, and yet up to the beginning of cooperative work in 

 that state it is doubtful if there were a dozen of their number 

 who could give any intelligent account of the processes by 

 which their product reached the table of the consumer, the 

 necessary expense of those processes, or of the character and 

 extent of the competition to which they are exposed. The 

 mixed farmer of Ohio, or the wheat-grower of Minnesota, has 

 not the same need of this knowledge ; his goods are staple and 

 the markets are at hand; if one crop proves unprofitable he 

 can the next year change to another crop; but to the specialist, 

 cultivating orchards under the circumstances prevailing in 

 California, this mercantile knowledge is vital, as hundreds 

 wdio entered upon the business without it have learned to 

 their sorrow. 



Suspicion. — This is the child of ignorance, and invariably 

 attends it; and it is born not only of ignorance, but of experi- 

 ence. The ignorant man is the natural prey of the designing 

 man, and having been often deceived is constantly expecting 



