Thus the banks are enabled to provide safe keeping for money without charge, and even to pay a low rate of interest upon considerable deposits when times are good. In this way legitimate borrowers and legitimate lenders find a close connection in the bank. A legitimate lender is one who has property not needed at present for his own use. A legitimate borrower is one who can use capital to advantage in production. Any producer may at one part of a year be a lender and afterward a borrower to advantage of everybody. If the banks are thoroughly satisfactory the proceeds of the fall crops may serve the busy manufacturers as circulating capital during the winter. Again, the proceeds of the spring sales of goods and machinery may tide the farmers over the season of growth. In this way labor of every kind is sustained by labor of every other kind. In all these ways the banking power of a country is extended to several times the coin money in circulation, and that with perfect safety. But it is possible for banks to be tempted through the very perfection of their own credit. The note of an individual has no established market value. A deposit in the bank is valued as cash. It is possible to secure the credit of having a bank deposit by discounting an individual note. If that note is a time note the bank has increased its immediate liabilities by the amount of a nominal deposit, with only a promise to pay in the future to rest upon. To lend to an individual is practically to enter into partnership with his fortune. The fortunes of the group of individuals representing the bank is less doubtful than that of any one person. The borrower in this instance pays in the discount of his note the difference in risk between his fortune and that of the combination. Such deposits purchased upon credit must be distinguished from deposits of cash, lest the bank should nominally increase its power to lend while in fact it has already lent up to its ability. Sometimes such nominal deposits are maintained by persons deeply in debt for the sake of paying a larger rate of interest than is allowed by law.