The farmer's wife--and there are 10,000,000 of her in the United States, has been the last one to be considered, in this outpouring of machinery. But I found at Milwaukee a rebuilt factory belonging to the International, where 2,500 men are making fifty cream separators and 100 gasolene engines a day, both designed to make life easier for Mrs. Farmer, as well as for her husband. Also, it will please her to know that she may soon be honking her way to town in an automobile buggy, which the big corporation is making for farmers in a new factory in Akron. A harvester company must follow the whims of its customers, almost as much as though it had newspapers for sale. It must give 10,000,000 farmers what they want. At the Plano factory I saw 470 different varieties of wheels; and sixty-one kinds of wooden tongues at McCormick's. "Nothing could be simpler than a tongue," said Maurice Kane, the chief mechanical expert of the International. "It is a mere pole. If we suited ourselves, we should only make two kinds--one for horses and one for oxen. But the farmers of the world have sixty-one different ideas as to how a tongue ought to be made, and we must give them what they ask for." The last Minnesota Legislature, in the simplicity of its heart, proposed to establish a complete harvester plant for $200,000. It may surprise the members of that Legislature to know that the International has lately spent twice as much merely to improve one twine factory in St. Paul, and four times as much to build one warehouse in Chicago. Though it began its career with sixty million dollars' worth of equipment, it has been forced by the pressure of its trade to spend sixteen millions more on its factories. And for lack of a weather prophet, it is obliged to carry over from five to six million dollars worth of machines each year, which remain unsold in different countries. By its very nature, this industry cannot be carried on in a small way. It is as essentially mutual and coöperative as life insurance or banking. If a malicious "green bug" devours the wheat in Kansas, the loss must be made up by larger sales somewhere else. This, no doubt, is the main reason why every plant that was ever built to supply a local trade has failed. No other manufacturing business carries so many risks or includes so many factors. It is the most comprehensive industry in the world. It is the link between the city and the farm. It is both wholesale and retail, ready-made and made to order, local and international. It must make what the farmer demands, and yet teach him better methods. It is at once a factory, a bank and a university.