ge. They not only
thoroughly understand the soil of the neighbourhood, and can forecast the
effect of particular seasons with certainty, but they possess an intimate
knowledge of family history, what farmer is in a bad way, who is doubtful,
or who has always had a sterling reputation. An old-established country
bank has almost always one or more such confidential advisers. Their
assistance is invaluable.

Since agriculture became in this way, through the adoption of banking, so
intimately connected with commerce, it has responded, like other
businesses, to the fluctuations of trade. The value of money in
Threadneedle Street affects the farmer in an obscure hamlet a hundred
miles away, whose fathers knew nothing of money except as a coin, a token
of value, and understood nothing of the export or import of gold. The
farmer's business is conducted through the bank, but, on the other hand,
the bank cannot restrict its operations to the mere countryside. It is
bound up in every possible manner with the vast institutions of the
metropolis. Its private profits depend upon the rate of discount and the
tone of the money market exactly in the same way as with those vast
institutions. A difficulty, a crisis there is immediately felt by the
country bank, whose dealings with its farmer customers are in turn
affected.

Thus commerce acts upon agriculture. _Per contra_, the tradesmen of the
town who go to the bank every morning would tell you with doleful faces
that the condition of agriculture acts upon trade in a most practical
manner. Neither the farmer, nor the farmer's wife and family expend nearly
so much as they did at their shops, and consequently the sums they carry
over to the bank are much diminished in amount. The local country
tradesman probably feels the depression of agriculture all but as much as
the farmer himself. The tradesman is perhaps supported by the bank; if he
cannot meet his liabilities the bank is compelled to withdraw that
support.

Much of this country banking seems to have grown up in very recent times.
Any elderly farmer out yonder in the noisy market would tell you that in
his young days when he first did business he had to carry coin with him,
especially if at a distance from home. It was then the custom to attend
markets and fairs a long way off, such markets being centres where the
dealers and drovers brought cattle. The dealers would accept nothing but
cash; they would not have looked at a cheque