Changes in Industrial Methods 5 



to be handled and marketed through different agencies. 

 The supplies which they use are variable and are secured 

 from different sources. It is only when they become 

 specialists in a crop in which a large community is in- 

 terested, like apples, oranges, tobacco, potatoes, or cotton, 

 and have to develop special facilities for the handling and 

 distribution of the crop, that a group of farmers have a 

 common purpose comparable to the aims of a large manu- 

 facturer or to those of a trade or industrial union. Under 

 these conditions, the farmers do have common problems 

 to meet. They are confronted with similar questions 

 of public policy, they purchase similar supplies, they 

 seek similar markets, they have to face the same ques- 

 tions of production, of transportation, of distribution, 

 and of sale. They are thereby placed in a position where 

 their business lends itself to organization in order that 

 methods may be improved, production cheapened, and 

 that there may be brought about a better handling, dis- 

 tribution, and marketing of their crops and an improve- 

 ment in their relations with other industries. It is, there- 

 fore, a difficult matter to apply to agriculture in general 

 such business methods as have been developed in the 

 secondary industries, or such as have contributed to the 

 progress of the American laborer. It will be shown in 

 later chapters that the methods of organizing capital and 

 labor are not always adapted to the organization of rural 

 problems and that the progress of the American farmer, 

 in so far as it springs from the development of better busi- 

 ness methods, must follow the adoption of practices that 

 can be applied to the business management of the farm 

 and to the organization of agricultural industries. 



