Its private profits depend upon the rate of discount and the tone of the money market exactly in the same way as with those vast institutions.

A difficulty, a crisis there is immediately felt by the country bank, whose dealings with its farmer customers are in turn affected.
Thus commerce acts upon agriculture.

_Per contra_, the tradesmen of the town who go to the bank every morning would tell you with doleful faces that the condition of agriculture acts upon trade in a most practical manner.

Neither the farmer, nor the farmer's wife and family expend nearly so much as they did at their shops, and consequently the sums they carry over to the bank are much diminished in amount.

The local country tradesman probably feels the depression of agriculture all but as much as the farmer himself.