330 AC.klCULTURK or MAINE. 



sections in the world's market, while heretofore certain sections 

 have had a monopoly of producing certain articles on account of 

 their nearness to certain markets and the lack of adequate trans- 

 portation from other producing centers. 



V. The Distinct business of selling and distributing. 



A. The position of the middleman. 



B. Building up the trade — increasing it. 



A. The Position of the Middleman. 



Sometimes I think there is a misconception of the middleman. 

 He is a distributor of food products the same as the country- 

 store keeper is the distributor of products in a community which 

 the people desire and demand. The commission man or dis- 

 tributor has his expenses fifty-two weeks in the year. He is 

 not necessarily particularly interested in what he handles. It 

 is the amount he can handle during the fifty-two weeks in the 

 year and the profit which he can make which interests him, the 

 same as in any other line of business, so he has to plan to keep 

 handling the products as they come in season. Looking at it 

 from this view point, he is not particularly interested in the 

 products he handles, or where they come from ; it is the quality, 

 the quantity and the amount he can dispose of at a profit, which 

 interests him. The amount which the farmer receives for his 

 product depends, to a great extent, on how much of the work 

 he, as the manufacturer, does in getting his product ready for 

 the market. Let us, for instance, take a few examples of the 

 many different ways of doing business. If eggs are collected 

 by a collector and then shipped to a large commission house 

 which grades these eggs and in turn distributes them to a retail 

 grocer or a hotel or restaurant, the farmer receives less than if 

 he graded his own eggs and shipped through a local association, 

 or shipped direct to a large commission house. The same applies 

 to milk, cream, butter, potatoes, etc. There is a certain amount 

 of work which must be done in the distribution of food, as well 

 as any other manufactured product. The man who does the 

 most work is going to get the most money out of it. Now if a 

 man collects an article like milk, for instance* furnishes the 

 containers, transports, pasteurizes and bottles it, finds a mar- 



