242 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
The usages and regulations of different markets are so diverse that it 
has been deemed a matter of much importance to examine in detail the 
peculiarities of the systems in vogue in the principal cities in the coun- 
try, with the hope and expectation that the better features of the best- 
regulated markets may ultimately secure general adoption. It was 
believed that a general reform in our market system is required, and 
that by taking wise and proper steps such reform could be inaugurated 
and carried to gratifying resnits. The first step was to arrive at a com- 
plete statement of these objectionable usages or customs in the food 
market; and with that view a circular was seut from this Department 
to a number of persons who, from their official or editorial position, were 
likely to be possessed of the information sought, asking information 
upon the following points: 
1. Number of days in the week and hours of the day in which farmers 
are permitted to sell from their wagons. ‘ 
2. Amount of space at the market-houses and on the streets which 
they are allowed to oecupy. 
3. Prices obtained by middlemen or hucksters, compared with the rates 
allowed by them to producers. 
4. The bearing of prevalent usages of commission-men upon the 
interests of producers. 
5. Amount of license (if any) required of farmers, and other munici- 
pal restrictions or requirements in regard to their sales. 
The result of this request has been the appearance of articles in the 
leading journals of our cities reciting the various abuses to which heuse- 
keepers are subjected in purchasing provisions. 
The Department is also in receipt of long and in many cases carefully 
prepared reports of the market systems of our cities, and of publie doe- 
uments, as charters and market ordinances, and in some eases extended 
historical statements of the gradaal development of systems to corre- 
spond with the growth of cities. This mass of material has caused some 
embarrassment from its bulk and from the diffieulty of establishing any 
system of presentation that would avoid a wearisome repetition. 
MARKETING IN CITIES OF LESS THAN 100,000 POPULATION, 
The difficulties of supplying the smaller cities with various articles of 
food are uot serious. From some, Albany and Norfolk, for instance, no 
complaints have been forwarded. In Albany the farmers drive into 
town in their farm wagons, arid the only city usage that affects them is 
one that requires the broad and beautiful street where they stand to be 
cleared by 11 o’clock. The sales are made direct by the tarmer to the 
families or. storekeepers, generally through the agency of runners, who 
earn a small commission where produce is sold’ in quantity. 
The plan.and geographical position of towns have much to do with mar- 
ket usages. Albany has the least cause for complaint of any city which 
has answered this circular. It is sarrounded by a fine farming coun- 
try, the estates extending to within a mile in some directions of the street 
where the principal sales are made. That street is so broad and the 
grade is so steep that making a market of the center of it does not lower 
its tone or detract from its healthfulness as a place for residences of the 
first class. On the other hand, cities like Newark, New York, and San 
Francisco, that are separated from farming communities by arms of 
the sea or by marshes and rivers, report the most objectionable usages. 
Mobile also, built-on a peninsula between a river and an arm of the sea, 
with a wide interval of marsh and barrens separating it from productive 
lands, complains of the unrighteous profits exacted of the consumer by 
