I wish I had a gift for statistics. If I had I think I could learnedly evolve a lesson from this business of farming and would be able to discourse on it profitably. Now that the rush of seeding is over, I am beginning to wonder vaguely who is going to get the profits from this work. As nearly as I can figure it out I shall be lucky if I get back the money invested in rent, seed grain, and labour and perhaps a day labourer's wages for myself: and yet, if all goes well, there should be enough of the raw materials of food--oats, corn, potatoes, apples, and garden truck--produced to feed several old-fashioned families. There should be a fine profit for that, even if the consumers got it at a little over the cost of production. Who is going to get the profits? There is a great chance for some one who has a proper grasp of business conditions to reverse the story of Macaulay's charwoman who set so many obedient workers in motion when she ordered her dish of tea. He should take the case of the farmer and show how many people he helps to make profits when he tills his land. Let us consider the orchard for a moment. When we got busy with that we had to buy sulphur and lime and no doubt had to pay prices that would give dividends on watered stock in a sulphur trust and a lime trust. I do not know whether those commodities are handled by trusts, but if they are not it is because some promoter has overlooked an opportunity. That one act of getting materials for the lime sulphur spray would cause activity among the sulphur miners of Sicily and the lime burners of Canada. It would also give employment to sailors and railroad workers and swell the profits of corporations that must make profits in spite of extravagance and wastefulness. To protect themselves they create monopolies and charge as much as the traffic will bear, and the man who uses their material must pay his share of it all. But I should be writing all summer if I tried to suggest even a few of those who will be helped by the work of the farmer. Let us pass on to the final stage. When the apples are ready to be sold barrels must be secured from some probable cooperage trust that gets its materials from a lumber trust and a nail trust. The apples must be shipped over a railroad that was built in a way that made millions for promoters and contractors and the freight rates must pay dividends on what was stolen and wasted as well as on what was legitimately invested. As nearly as I can see it, the farmer's profits must go to pay every form of waste and extravagance and extortion in the business world. And the part of this burden that he is not able to bear is placed on the ultimate consumer of his products, who, as a rule, cannot afford it any more than the farmer. Looking at matters in this way, it amazes me to think that every attempt to regulate the operations of the banks and Big Business at once meets with such an outcry of protest. Surely those who have to bear the burdens should have something to say about the amount of these burdens. The farmer of the present day is compelled to use as much intelligence, education, thrift, and business foresight as any business man if he is to keep his head above water and he is compelled to bear the whole burden of his own mistakes and waste and extravagance. Why should not business men be placed on the same footing? If you take the trouble to figure it out you will find that the burden of every failure and mismanagement in the business world finally falls on the farmers and consumers of the country. Business men may fail and lose all, but in the end every cent of their losses must be paid to society as a whole by the workers. It is about time that our captains of industry and finance were awakened from their dreams. Those who make their profits from the white shirt business of distribution should be compelled to bear burdens as well as the men who do the cowhide boot and overall work of production. The farmer is compelled to take what is offered for his products and pay what he is asked for what he buys. As it is impossible for farmers to protect themselves by forming a trust and securing a monopoly of the necessaries of life, it seems to me that they are quite within their rights in demanding that others be prevented from doing such things. They have to do all their work on a competitive basis, and there is no reason that others should not be forced to do the same. The ghastly joke of the whole unjust arrangement is that it is largely the money of the farmers, deposited in the branch banks, that is used to finance corporations that stifle competition and make the farmers pay profits on their watered stock and mismanagement. This system has been the growth of only the past few years.