480 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE
covers the vast quantities of city products which are pur-
chased annually by American farmers, he begins to realize that
this nation, in spite of its huge and increasing industrial
progress in recent years, is still largely an agricultural country.
The national functions of the Stock Exchange, as a matter of
fact, are in no way more clearly emphasized than by the ser-
vices which it renders to farmers all over the United States.
The latter of course benefit from its operation to some
extent simply through being investors, although it is of course
true that the favorite farmer’s investment is, and may always
be, the farm mortgage. Still, the idea that all farmers are
overcredulous victims of the stock swindler’s wiles is far from
the truth. Some farmers are as shrewd judges of sound
securities as could easily be found among most other classes of
American business men. Moreover, farmers invest indirectly
to an even greater extent by holding savings accounts and
insurance policies in great numbers and for large aggregate
sums.
Undoubtedly, however, the relationship between the Stock
Exchange and American agriculture is less close than with
other American industries, for the reason that American agri-
culture has thus far only in rare instances organized itself in
corporate form, and in consequence cannot like other industries
seek capital through the Stock Exchange. But, as a President
of the New York Stock Exchange has pointed out,’ this is not
wholly a Utopian prospect for future years, and if agricultural
shares could be distributed more extensively through the Stock
Exchange, it would enable the American farmer to obtain
partnership capital which he really needs, instead of loans which
only plunge him deeper into debt.
The Stock Exchange and the American Farmer.—The
principal assistance which the Exchange has been able to render
the farmer consists of having been so largely instrumental in
establishing the machinery of transportation upon which the
6 See Appendix XVIIb.
