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namely that the territorial division of labor is between East and West rather than between North and South. There is a natural and permanent division of labor between different climatic zones. This gives rise to transportation lines running north and south. The division of labor and exchange of products between East and West are due in part to difference of soil and other physical conditions, but mainly to the fact that the East is older and the West younger. The older communities develop the highly technical industries first, leaving to the younger communities the task of producing raw materials and the cruder products. In short, the division of labor and exchange of products between East and West are mainly between the manufacturing and commercial regions on the one hand and the agricultural, mining and lumbering regions on the other.

This fact, in so far as it affects agriculture, derives considerable significance from its bearing upon the problem of distributing farm products. It means that the bulk of our agricultural produce is grown at vast distances from the centres of consumption. Another fact which points in the same direction is that our railroads have given great attention to long distance freight and almost none to local freight. These may be said to be the dominating facts in the organization of our agricultural markets. The amount of produce which is grown within hauling distance of the consumer is so small as to be negligible. Accordingly very little account is taken of it and very few provisions have been made for handling it. Dealers of all kinds have planned their business primarily with a view to handling produce from a distance shipped in by rail, and only secondarily, if at all, with a view to handling produce which is hauled to town by farmers nearby. Nor have many cities made provision for an open market where local producers might sell directly to consumers.

From the standpoint of the city consumer this situation has certain advantages as well as disadvantages. It relieves him of dependence upon local producers, giving him a choice among large numbers of producers scattered over wide areas. Again, it lengthens the season over which a perishable fruit or vegetable may be consumed. But it tends to discourage the local producer who might otherwise supply a very superior, because fresher, product in its proper season. Lacking adequate machinery for handling and distributing his product, he is often at a positive disadvantage in competition with a more distant producer who sends his product through a well-organized system with well-worn channels.

The predominance of this system of longdistance marketing has necessitated certain changes both in method and machinery. When the farmer could haul his produce to town and show it to the consumer, marketing was simple and its methods could be crude without great loss of efficiency. The method was that which is known as selling on inspection. It becomes, however, a very expensive and laborious process when producer and consumer are widely separated. It requires a chain of middlemen, each of whom must make a profit. Selling by sample is an improvement upon selling on inspection because it is less expensive and laborious; but it is possible only where there is confidence in the seller, that is,

confidence that the whole quantity offered for sale will be like the sample submitted for inspection. This is a case where confidence makes economy possible. A still more economical method, but a method which requires still more confidence, is that which is known as selling on grade. If the product is properly graded the name of the grade takes the place of a sample so that it is not even necessary to submit a sample for inspection. This requires confidence not only in the honesty of the seller but also in the scientific accuracy of the one who does the grading.

The nearer to his farm the process of grading can take place the better it will be for the farmer. Except in the case of the very large farmer who sells on a scale large enough to make an impression on the market, selling on grade is an impossibility for the farmer. The small farmer operating alone cannot establish confidential relations with large numbers of dealers nor can he gain such a reputation on the market as to secure the general acceptance of his grades. A large group of farmers, however, acting co-operatively, may achieve this result. Every great co-operative selling organization among farmers which has achieved notable success owes its success to its system of grading as much as to any other single factor. Not every farm product can be graded accurately enough to permit of its being sold by grade. Selling by sample or on inspection is then the only method. In these cases it is sometimes possible to sell rapidly, economically and on a large scale by the auction method. Horses, for example, are not easily graded. So far as the writer knows they are never sold on grade. Selling by sample is obviously impossible. The auction method seems to have demonstrated its superiority over other methods in every large horse market where horses have to be sold at wholesale and in large numbers. The same method is being tried in a large number of other cases including such diverse products as cheese, apples, fish, oranges, besides all sorts of vegetables.

The commission merchant is a peculiar and more or less temporary development growing out of the necessity of selling products on a distant but badly organized market. To him the producer consigns his product to be sold for whatever it will bring, the commission merchant deducting a fixed commission on the price received and returning the balance to the producer. Under this method the producer assumes all the risk and the commission merchant none. Besides, this method invites abuses because the producer has very few and very inadequate checks upon the commission merchant. This presents temptations which human nature is not always strong enough to withstand. In a disorganized and uncertain market the distant producer frequently has no other recourse than to consign to a commission merchant. As soon, however, as the market becomes organized and the demand fairly calculable the commission merchant gives place to the jobber who buys from the producer and sells again, thus assuming the risk and relieving the producer of it. During the transition stage, however, many houses practice both methods, becoming jobbers when the market is firm and prices advancing and commission merchants when the market is unstable or

AGRICULTURAL SYNDICATES

prices falling, thus playing the time-honored game of "heads I win, tails you lose."

The parcels-post and express companies are beginning to serve as agencies through which the producer may sell directly to distant consumers. The success of this method is obviously limited to those products which can be accurately graded and put up in standardized packages, in short, to those articles which can be sold on grade rather than by sample or on inspection. There is no reason, however. why there should not be a great increase in the use of these agencies in this restricted field. Moreover, this is an expanding field. The tendency is more and more toward grading and standardizing all products which are capable of being graded and standardized. Before much can be done in this direction it will be necessary for the government, either State or Federal, to define grades more fully and accurately. To define a grade is merely to establish a standard of quality. This is coming to be quite as important as to establish standards of quantity as is already done when the government defines weights and measures.

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There is another large fact which must be remembered in any discussion of the problem of getting agricultural products from producer to consumer- that is, three-fourths of all the telephones in the world in the United States and Canada. This means that American housewives, more than any others, have formed the habit of ordering goods by telephone. It is not likely that this habit will decline. It is more likely to grow. If it does, it means that direct selling by the farmer to the consumer is possible only within a very limited field. The store which can always be reached by telephone and which can make a prompt delivery will have an advantage in getting the trade of the telephone-using .housewife.

This paper may be summarized as follows: (1) From the standpoint of distribution two classes of products are grown in the United States, first, the great staple crops for which there is a well-organized market and which sell at a quotable price; second, agricultural specialties for which there is no well-organized market and which do not sell at a quotable price. The latter class presents the difficult problem in distribution. (2) There are two distinct problems in the marketing and distribution of farm products, especially the minor crops and agricultural specialties. The first is that of distributing the products where they are grown within a wagon-haul of the consumer. The second is where the products are grown at such a distance from the consumer that the producer cannot accompany them to market. Of these, the latter is much the larger problem in the United States. (3) There are three distinct methods of selling products: First, selling on inspection; second, selling by sample; and third, selling on grade. Of these three methods the last is the most efficient where the product can be satisfactorily graded; but the conditions are more exacting, requiring confidence not only in the honesty of the seller but also in his skill and accuracy as a grader. (4) There are four characteristic agencies through which the producer who is distant from the market may sell his products. The first and crudest is the commission mer

VOL. 1-9

AGRICULTURAL SYNDICATES, differing from agricultural associations in that they take on more the character of co-operative societies and act as commission merchants for their members in the sale of their produce. It is estimated that they now number 5,000 in Europe with a membership of 800,000 individuals. Their most complete development has been reached in France among the vineyardists. Their funds are usually derived from a commission charged their members on the business transacted for them, whether in selling their produce or buying fertilizers, farming machinery or seeds. They are also sometimes active in politics in promoting the farming interests. In some countries their influence has been potent enough to obtain subsidies from the government. AGRICULTURAL TRACTORS.

TRACTORS.

See

AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. Land and Labor.- The two factors which, more than any others, have given character to American agriculture are: First, an abundance of land and, second, a scarcity of labor. These two factors almost necessarily belong together because land is abundant whenever and wherever there is not enough labor to cultivate it thoroughly, and labor is scarce whenever and wherever there is more land than can be thoroughly cultivated. The necessary and logical result of this combination of abundant land and scarce labor is extensive as opposed to intensive farming. Extensive farming consists in using a small quantity of labor on a large quantity of land, whereas intensive farming consists in using a large quantity of labor on a small quantity of land. As extensive farming is the logical system in a country where land is abundant and labor scarce, so intensive farming is the logical system in an over-populated country where labor is abundant and land scarce.

Not only was the character of our agriculture largely determined by this combination of scarce labor and abundant land, but many of our political and social institutions, and much of our political and social history as well. It gave rise, for example, to the institution of slavery which was primarily an agricultural institution, together with all that grew out of that institution. Scarce labor and abundant land mean necessarily dear labor and cheap land. This is a situation extremely favorable to those farmers who expect to work with their own hands. Cheap and abundant land means free opportunity for self-employment on the part of the agricultural laborer, whereas scarce and dear land means limited opportunity for self-employment, most of those who work the land being compelled to work for others. Scarce and dear labor means necessarily a

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liberal income for the self-employed laborer. On the other hand, this is a situation which is very unfavorable to the proprietary farmer who does not expect to work with his own hands but has to depend upon the labor of others to cultivate his lands. The cheapness of land reduces his income from that source and the scarcity and dearness of labor makes it difficult for him to secure the necessary help.

In Virginia and the other southern colonies this difficulty was increased by the exceedingly liberal land policy. In Virginia, for example, there were three methods by which an individual might acquire title to land:* One was to buy a share of the stock of the London Company, to which the land had been granted by the British Crown. These shares were called "Bills of Adventure" and the holder of each share, besides participating in the profits of the company, was entitled to receive without further cost 100 acres of land. The second method was by meritorious service. Ministers of religion, physicians and other public servants, including those who had performed valuable manual labor, were sometimes granted tracts of land as rewards of merit. The third method, which was really the one generally used, was known as "head right." Under this right anyone who transported to the colony any person, including himself, at his own expense, could secure, without further expense, 50 acres of land for every person so transported. Later on this method became so laxly administered that any free person could secure land under it without much regard to the original requirements.

This liberal policy made it extremely difficult for any large landowner to keep sufficient help to cultivate his land. No man was willing to work for wages when he could, practically without money and without price, secure a tract of land and become a landowner himself. The difficulty was first met by the system of indentured servants. An indentured servant was simply a person who was too poor to pay for his own transportation to the colony. In order to get there he would agree to work for a term of years for someone who would advance the money. After his term of service had expired he became a free man and could become a landowner on the same easy terms as anyone else. This gave the large landowner an opportunity to keep a laborer for a short term of years but his labor supply had to be constantly renewed. Under these conditions African slavery seemed to furnish a solution of the problem which confronted the large landowner. It was the ruin of the small white farmer who worked his own land and who thereafter had to sell the products of his own labor in competition with that of slave labor. If they had been awake to the situation they would at once have prevented the establishment of slavery or, later, have abolished it, since they vastly outnumbered the large landowners alone found slavery profitable.

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The conditions in New England were more favorable to a continuation of free labor for several reasons. In the first place the soil and climate were less favorable to the production

of great staple crops such as tobacco and cotton. Consequently there was less farming for profit and more farming for a living. In the second place there were fewer large landholders who needed an abundant supply of cheap labor. In the third place the land policy was a little less liberal. That is to say, there were more restrictions and obstacles in the way of land ownership. Land was less frequently granted directly to individuals but generally to companies or groups of individuals, who founded towns. The individual settlers generally received their grants from these companies or towns. Some of the earlier towns were settled as church communities. The formation of a town amounted practically to the organization of a church congregation and then settling as a congregation upon a tract of land and calling it a town. Weeden,

in his Social and Economic History of New England,' says that "It was the admirable economic land tenure which shaped the early towns; without this, even their religious and political systems might not have established their distinctive system of living." The restrictions upon land ownership made it a little less easy for the landless man to become a landowner and the harshness of the climate, the sterility of the soil and the difficulty of reducing it to cultivation made landownership a little less desirable in New England than it was in the South. Consequently it was, on the one hand, easier to keep a supply of labor for those who needed it, and, on the other, there was less demand on the part of landowners for a large supply of cheap labor in New England. Therefore, slavery never appealed to the New Englanders as an economic necessity as it had to the wealthy landowners of Virginia. Nevertheless there were, in limited numbers, both indentured servants and negro slaves in New England. But neither class ever figured prominently as factors of agricultural production, being kept rather as domestic servants by wealthy. townsmen.

Labor-saving Devices.-Another characteristic of American agriculture which grew out of the original factors of scarce labor and abundant land was the large use of labor-saying devices and, until recently, the general absence of land-saving devices. This was a logical and natural result. Labor being scarce and hard to get it was necessary to economize it. Agricultural machinery in America was consequently designed almost exclusively with a view to enabling a given amount of labor to cultivate a larger area of land rather than to enable a larger population to subsist on a given area. Neither the reaper, the mower, the twine-binder, the thresher, the corn planter, the grain drill, the cultivator, the corn-husker nor any other characteristic American farm machine is calculated to increase materially the product per acre. They are designed to increase the product per man by enabling each man to cultivate more acres. In the use of labor-saving devices American farmers have shown themselves to be the most scientific and progressive farmers in the world. In the use of land-saving devices they have not kept up with some of the older and more thickly populated countries, as shown by the fact that our product per acre is noticeably lower than theirs. However, our product per man is