108 Cooperation in Agriculture 



commission and the discount on the notes, piles up a 

 tremendous expense bill, which must be added to the 

 cost of the horse and paid by the purchasers. Stallion 

 owners estimate that it costs on an average about $1000 

 to sell a stallion by the company system. A home-or- 

 ganized company could send a man to Europe for a horse 

 at a smaller expense than that. 



" The unreliability of the system rests on the fact that, 

 under the law, firms are liable for the acts of their agents 

 only when agents act within the limits of their authority. 

 If a firm wishes to do so, when a purchasing company 

 finds an agent's promises of no value, it can retire behind 

 the excuse that the agent exceeded his authority. How- 

 ever, there are, no doubt, more honest agents than dis- 

 honest ones, just as there are more honest stallion owners 

 than dishonest ones. 



"The element of unreliability is of course not always 

 present in the sale of a horse by the company system, for 

 the representations of an honest agent of an honest firm 

 can be depended on to the letter. But no firm can sell 

 a horse in this way without great cost to the purchasers, in 

 many cases more than the horse is really worth, and in 

 most cases more than the shareholders can ever hope 

 to get out of their investment. The system has one great 

 merit, namely, that it is taking many good horses into 

 sections of the country where they are sorely needed, 

 and probably the value of such horses to a community 

 will be equal in the long run to the price paid for them, 

 although this may not show in the books of the companies 

 which purchase them." 



