140 TWELFTH REPORT. 



shops is atrociously redundant because the modern housewife has not the 

 disposition to go long distances to market and because the capital re- 

 quired to enter the business is moderate and the division of labor in a 

 small store is not sharj) enough to jirevent every clerk from ])icking up 

 enough knowiedge to presently strike out for himself. In addition to 

 these unfavorable circumstances the shopper, accustomed to department 

 store methods, is exacting in matters of stock and equipment, so that 

 the line of least resistance in competition is often to divide the trade and 

 refine or elaborate the service rather than to offer lower prices.^ 



New Wants. 



Turning from the production and distribution of agricultural staples 

 to the new wants which have established themselves in a generation we 

 must, at the outset, recognize that the growth of these Avants is not only 

 due to increased eiirning power of the consumer, but to the thirty years 

 of low-priced staples, which have left free an unusually large portion of 

 his earnings to be expended on other things. 



Among these wants j>ermit me to single out three groups involving 

 respectively the dietary, the household economy, and expenditures of 

 chiefly social import. 



The dietary changes of forty-five years have been marked. They in- 

 volve an increase in the consumption of sugar, milk, butter, poultry, frait 

 and vegetables. Most of these changes have been toward foods more 

 pleasing to the jtalate but of low nutritive value, such as cucumbers, 

 melons, salads, green vegetables, strawberries, tomatoes, olives, canned 

 goods, oysters, etc. Peaches in good condition contain 8% solid matter; 

 milk contains 13% of solids; fruits generally are from 85 to 00% 

 water.- Such foods have therefore relieved the demand for the staples 

 but little. 



The beginnings of a general demand for these expensive foods may be 

 traced to the decade following the close of the Civil War, and appear 

 to arise as a function of the decline in the price of the staples. For ex- 

 ample, it was cited as a wonderful thing in 1865 that Cincinnati sent 

 fruits to the lake cities two weeks before the northern season ojjened, 

 and that the latter localities sent back late fruits. In 1866 the district 

 in southern Illinois known as ''Egypt'' began to be developed for early 

 fruits and vegetables, and in connection with its transportation problem 

 the refrigerator car, invented in 1868 by Davis and Sutherland of De- 

 troit, was perfected. In 1870 the California fruit industry began a 

 long period of rapid growth, first to supply canning and drying estab- 

 lishments, but after the early eighties to supply shipments of fresh fruit 

 to the east in refrigerator cars. In 1875 there was developed something-^ 

 of a craze with reference to the Florida orange industry and families 

 moved from all sections of the country to that state. In succeeding^ 

 years Florida sent early fruit, and vegetables in ever increasing variety 

 to the eastern cities and from her and California the southern states 

 generally have learned the profit of supplying the early markets. 



At the present time these industries have reached a very large develop- 

 ment. The first strawberries, from Christmas until the middle of Febru- 

 ary come from Florida and Texas, then the Gulf states and North Caro- 



'Sec. Wilson has found that the cost of retailing meat in 50 cities is 38%, calculated 

 wholesale prices. Report, 1909. 



"Lazenby in Ohio Hort. Soc. Proc, 1900. 



on 



