ually located at the point of
primary shipment. These local plants, as well as local creameries,
canneries, and other agricultural factories and storage plants, become
community institutions as they meet the needs of the farmers within the
areas tributary to the centers where they are located. It is true, of
course, that many of these plants are located in the open country or at
mere railroad stations, and that many of them draw their patronage from
several communities; yet more commonly than otherwise they are located
at village centers and serve the areas tributary to them. With the
advent of good roads and motor trucks, the areas served by such
establishments will tend to become larger, but there are many local
circumstances which will tend to limit the process of centralization.
Whether these plants are operated by private individuals, by stock
companies, or by cooperative associations of the producers, they are
essential to an effective marketing system and may greatly strengthen
community life. If, however, there be two or three elevators in a little
village, each operated for profit by a private owner, where all the
business could be more economically handled by one concern and where the
competition creates friction and suspicion, then like the rivalry
between an excessive number of churches, they tend to divide the
community.

Students of marketing problems seem agreed that better marketing systems
will benefit the farmer through greater efficiency which will reduce the
costs of the process rather than through greater profits from higher
prices, and that in many lines the largest improvement is possible in
the grading, packing, and shipping from the local station. This being
the case, it seems obvious that the solution of the marketing problem
will increasingly depend upon community action.

Better transportation and storage facilities tend to stabilize prices
over large areas and to give the larger markets increasing advantage in
bargaining for the farmer's products. Not that there is any concerted
action upon the part of the buyers to take an undue advantage of the
farmer, for there is usually keen competition between them, but
inevitably the "centralization" of the buying power of the larger
markets makes it possible for them to very largely determine the price,
just as the large employers of labor can to a considerable extent
determine the wages they will pay if labor is unorganized; for whenever
there is