MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 141 



lina jjrovide the supply until May when Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland 

 and tSouthern Illinois supply us. The sui>ply of fresh eggs comes from 

 the same regions in about the same order, but a month earlier. In the 

 vegetable trade Florida holds the seaboard until Easter while Texas and 

 Louisiana supply the west, and the su]>]>lying regions move north with 

 the progress of the ripening belt. 



These are out-of-season industries, so far as the northern farmer is 

 concerned, and by their development we have itushed the supplying dis- 

 tricts away from us. The natural correlation by which truck and fruit 

 farms locate around the cities they supply has been disturbed and we 

 buy foods three-fourths of the price of which is middleman's profits and 

 transportation. The Deland (Fla.) News has recently said that even for 

 so standard a cro]> as oranges the northern wholesale price is from 

 one-third to one-half freight. 

 Household cconoiitij. 



Another group of wants has arisen in connection with changes in the 

 household economy. There were three times as many people living in 

 American cities in 1900 as in 1870^ and they lived in larger cities. This 

 fact alone involves far-reaching consequences. The cost of preserving- 

 health, })rivacy, and the decencies of life in cities is a figure we are be- 

 ginning to explore in connection with the warfare now made on disease, 

 and in payments for plumbing, water, insurance, local transportation, 

 sidewalks and streets and taxes. The necessities of city life have forced 

 many industries out of the households and the growth of factory pro- 

 duction has attracted others. A good deal of the baking, canning, cur- 

 ing of meats, manufacture of clothes, carpets, soap, etc., has been re- 

 moved along with the preparation of the winter wood and the care of 

 the vegetable garden. The change is no doubt desirable, taking it as a 

 whole. It saves the labor of women and children and of the after-work 

 hours of the wage-earner, but as this labor is usually not marketed in 

 any other form new items of cash expenditure must of necessity appear 

 in tlie family budget. 



By this change the household is made less of a ti'aining school than 

 it once was and, as the teaching of domestic science has not yet been 

 generally introduced, young women of today know less than their 

 mothers about such tasks as still remain in the household, and they are 

 less habituated to withstand the drudgery of difficult or tedious duties. 

 So there is a great demand for ready-prepared foods. The housewife 

 who does not know how to cook or who desires to avoid the complex pro- 

 cessess by which cheap meats can be made palatable, or who has a ser- 

 vant equally anxious to avoid this work, must buy tender and expensive 

 cuts. Nor can a shopi>er who is ignorant of qualities expend money effi- 

 ciently. She must fall back upon price as the criterion of excellence, 

 and is likely to become the prey of the maker or dealer who maintains 

 the most expensive advertising campaign to •"educate" her. 

 Expenditures of Social Significance. 



In conclusion, a word about expenditures which have an important 

 bearing upon social standing. So long as the splendid descendants of the 

 Puritans in New England and of the F. F. Vs. in Virginia lived to- 

 gether in poverty in their eastern homes there was a definite and in- 



iJn 1870—8.071.875 or 20.9%. In 1900—24.992,199 or 3.3.1%. 



