It is not necessary to my purpose to consider the farmer as a man competing with all other men, but only in the narrower view of a farmer competing with all other farmers. We shall find this wide enough.

Among an ideal race of beings the object of each party to an exchange of commodities would be to get for himself and for another exactly what would fairly pay each for the necessary cost of acquirement. As human beings are now constituted, however, it would be a waste of time, from a merely economic standpoint, to discuss exchanges on the assumption that such motives will control their character. Any such discussion belongs to the science of ethics, which deals with human affairs from the standpoint of what ought to be. Economics deals with facts as they are, and therefore necessarily assumes universal competition.

The relation of the farmer to his competitors is, then, the relation of one struggling with another, not necessarily in an unfriendly spirit, but with intent to beat if possible, regardless of the feelings or interests of the competitor. In such struggles the fundamental requisite for success is to keep watch of the opponent. An athlete who should pay no attention to the actions of his opponent could only hope to win by means of very great superiority of strength. This principle of watchfulness as a condition of success is universal, applying equally to physical, intellectual, and business contests.

It is in neglect of this principle that farmers fail most completely. Very few farmers know what their competitors are doing. In this respect they are immeasurably inferior to the mercantile and manufacturing classes. The cause of this is not altogether intellectual inferiority, although it is true that the most alert and vigorous men tend to engage in other occupations than farming, but it is also true that men of no great mental endowments may and do succeed fairly well in business. Merchants and manufacturers watch their competitors more closely than farmers because they are compelled" to. Competition is such that failure to watch is ruin. When a manufacturer finds a competitor persistently meeting him with goods of equal quality but lower price, he knows at once

that the competitor is in financial difficulty and striving to realize, regardless of cost, or that he is producing cheaper than himself, the latter involving his own ruin unless he can himself reduce cost. He is, therefore, constantly on the alert to discover the details of the manufacturing and business methods of all his competitors in order to promptly avail himself of any improvement which any one of them may make. He is able to do this much easier than the farmer, because he is himself, through his agents, the year round, in close competition in all markets, and his place of business will be in some populous center of intelligence. The majority of farmers live in a rather isolated way, do not mingle freely with well-informed business men, and make their principal sales of produce but once a year, and they are, therefore, greatly handicapped in such efforts as they do make to inform themselves in regard to markets and competition. Their main reliance is the columns of the daily and agricultural press, which are of very little value except as to conditions affecting a few staple crops, such as cotton, grain, and, to a less extent, tobacco and wool, which are the objects of speculation on a large scale. Even as to these things the press obtains very little information which has not been obtained by the trade and used for its own purposes, and to the disadvantage of the farmer, before publication. The journals of general circulation do not obtain this information in advance because it would cost too much.

The farmer, also, is greatly hampered in ascertaining the cost of his competitor's products because such costs vary so greatly from year to year. It requires more labor than most farmers are willing to bestow to ascertain their own yearly costs of produce, much more to discover the costs of others; and if by any means they may ascertain substantially the cost of competing products raised in some distant section in a given year, it may never be correct for any other year.

The fact is it is far more difficult for a farmer to find out what his competitors are doing than for merchants or manufacturers, and yet it is equally necessary. The competitors of the American wheat farmer are, first, his own neighbors, then

those of his district or state, then those of other states, and finally those of all foreign wheat-producing countries. The task seems hopeless and indeed is absolutely hopeless for the individual farmer. The cost of obtaining, independently, from original sources, the facts which the farmer needs to know in order to act with reasonable intelligence in selling, would in any year be more than the value of the crop and the farm itself.

The only thing which the farmer can do unaided, in this case, is to familiarize himself with the physical geography of all competing districts, the standard of life of their people, and the length and character of the transportation routes connecting them with the commercial center which fixes the world's price of that particular commodity. The physical facts will largely determine the size and character of the crop. These are accessible. The best cyclopedias give them very fully. The standard of life of the laboring class will determine the relative cost of the labor bestowed on the crop. This he will get less from cyclopedias, although much as to this can be learned from them, but more from good books of travel, and similar publications. The nature of the transportation, whether river, sea, or rail, and the relative length of each, will enable him to compare his situation in that respect. Such matters as national tariffs of course have to be considered when one is in a business, but should not be regarded when proposing to engage in one. Tariff protection is very uncertain, as rates of duty are constantly changing. The farmer is best situated for competition who can produce absolutely at the least cost.

Considered with reference to competition with his immediate neighbors, the farmer's position varies according to his product and his market. If producing a product of limited use for the local market, and unsalable elsewhere-as the market gardener-he is in intense competition with all neighbors engaged in the same business. He needs to observe the varieties, methods of culture, and methods of packing employed by all in order to make sure that no one excels him. If, however, he is engaged in producing the same commodities

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 adapted 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 companies, 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 cooperation, 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 aggregate 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 conditions 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.

T

CHAPTER IV.

THE FARMER AND HIS CREDITORS.

HE condition of the indebted farmer who is not mort

gaged requires no special discussion unless he is so

deeply indebted that a mortgage has become necessary, in which case what is here said is fully applicable.

A large number of our farmers have mortgages upon their property, and of the mortgaged farmers the majority have floating debt in addition, and the majority of the unsecured indebtedness of farmers is due and unpaid.

Since this is a condition which a multitude of farmers are compelled to face, it is worth while to give some study to the business principles involving the proper treatment of all serious indebtedness.

From the first settlement of the United States to the end of the first third of the nineteenth century, our progress was slow and uniform. Conditions were rude, land abundant and cheap, communications difficult, the rewards of labor moderate, money scarce. The temptation to incur debt was small, and while there are no available statistics to disclose the exact facts, we may safely assume that in the main serious indebtedness in the farming population was confined to the improvident, who will always exist and always suffer for their improvidence.

In the thirties, however, the great tide of immigration from northern Europe began to show its force, and for nearly a half century there was a great and continuous influx of thrifty and vigorous stocks, to whom our cheap lands, and at last our free lands, opened the way to a vast improvement in their material conditions. The majority of these immigrants pushed at once to the frontier, all taking more or less money with them for the purchase of farms already opened, or their support while themselves opening new ones. The farmers of our own middle