ABSTRACT
To a farmer selling in the local market it made hardly any difference whether the elevator was owned by the railroad company or by an "independent." The operations of the Chicago wheat pit were another factor in regulating the prices paid to farmers. The stock was bought from the Prairies and westward, shipped to Chicago, purchased there by brokers, and reshipped to the places of consumption. Credit relations were often quite as onerous as the perplexities of transportation and marketing, and the outcries of farmers against the bankers, insurance companies, land mortgage associations, and other creditors were loud and fairly continuous. In foreign markets, as well as domestic, the main products sold from the Prairies were wheat and meat. The Prairie purchases of imports were so intermingled with like goods of American make that it would be difficult, if at all possible, to determine the amount.
