284 Wisconsin state agricultural society . 
dealers, at stated times, in consideration of the increased business 
it would bring to his bank. 
With the merchant selected to supply the society, each 
member deals directly, but the rate of profit to be charged, the 
terms of payment of the accounts, etc., are fixed by the contract. 
The advantages of this system of purchases, I believe to be 
these: 
1st. It enables farmers to make their purchases at a very con¬ 
siderable saving in cost. 
2d. It would tend to make them systematic in forecasting their 
wants, regular in their expenditures and payment, and to prevent 
that habit of incurring numerous little debts here and there, 
which is the farmers’ easily besetting sin and fruitful source of 
embarassment. 
3d. It costs but little to try it as an experiment, and if it fails, 
no capital is sunk in its abandonment. 
It may be objected that such a course of business would tend 
to thin out the non-agricultural portion of the rural population. 
To some extent it might, but it seems to me better that the little 
trade nursed villages should grow less rapidly, than that the farmers’ 
broad acres should be shingled with over lapping mortgages. It 
is better that less enterprise and capital were devoted to mere 
trade and more to manufacture and the development of our min¬ 
eral wealth and the improvement ot our magnificent water powers. 
If fewer of our young men went to clerking in stores, and man¬ 
fully turned the tape-reeling, calico-measuring business over to 
the girls, and went out into the ruggeder paths of enterprise, 
where manhood grows strong with struggling—if they sought 
some pursuit which brought into requisition all the grand capaci¬ 
ties coiled up in the brain of the American boy, it would be better 
for them and for all. 
Oar system has another device for facilitating traffic. Our far¬ 
mer is a trading animal and always has something to swap or sell. 
£0 our co-operative society holds three or four fairs in the year, 
after the European custom, for the purpose of trade. Two or 
three weeks before the appointed fair day, a bulletin is published 
by the secretary of the society and circulated through the me¬ 
dium of the clubs and otherwise, in which any of the members 
