cessful, and internal dissension seems to have already brought it
near its end. It is plain that the farmers are powerless to effect a
reduction of the competition among themselves. Nor is this condition at
all likely to change. Farming is unlike other modern productive
industries in that the cost of production does not decrease as it is
conducted on a larger scale. The most profitable farms are, and perhaps
will always be, the small ones, where the details of the tillage come
directly under the eye of the owner.

Such are the facts with respect to the prospect of making a monopoly of
agriculture, and it would seem that they are so simple and so easily
understood that no attempt would ever be made to restrict competition
among farmers. It is to be recorded, however, that such attempts are
being seriously made. Prominent farmers of the West in the spring of
1888 took the preliminary steps towards the formation of a farmers'
trust. Conventions were held and resolutions adopted reciting that the
operation of trusts in manufacturing industries and of monopolies in
trade and transportation laid serious burdens on the farmers of the
country; and that in order not to be left behind in the struggle for
existence the farmers must combine for their own protection. Committees
were appointed to work out the details of a plan of organization; but
the movement seems to have lost vitality when its projectors came to
study it in detail. The preceding argument fully explains the reason.

It should be said, however, that cooeperative associations among the
farmers are growing at a rapid pace. The Grange and the Farmers'
Alliance are primarily cooeperative associations for the purpose of
benefiting their members in the purchase of goods and in various other
directions, and they are fast increasing in numbers and influence. The
attempts made to benefit their members in the sale of their produce have
been generally confined to protection against the "middle men." The only
movement of which the author is aware for restricting production to
increase price, has been in certain sections of the South, where
recently a general attempt has been made to restrict the acreage planted
in tobacco in the hope of raising the price.

It is a matter worthy of note here that the combined influence of the
farmers of the country has recently been successful in securing
legislation to defeat an important outside competitor. A few years ago
some chemists foun