244 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
by 60,000 persons shelters over 200,000, and the population of the 
city and of the towns that are practically suburbs and inhabited mainly 
by merchants and artisans is about 650,000. The business at Fanepil 
Hall Market, at first retail, is now chiefly wholesale and jobbing. It is 
the great provision exchange for New England. Not over 2,000 ont of 
50,000 families go there tg market. They buy at second-hand of corner 
grocers. There are 739 such shops now, and there were but 330 in 1851, 
showing that the corner-grocery system is increasing faster than is ne- 
cessary to keep pace with the population. The prices at these shops are 
higher than at Faneuil Hall, but the difference is not excessive, and can 
be kept moderate if the citizens will but inform themselves of Faneuil 
Hall prices, and show a determination to go there rather than to pay 
more than an equivalent for the loss of time in going to a more distant 
market. 
The market system of New York closely resembles that of Boston: 
Of public markets there are fourteen, of which the principal are Wash- 
ington, West Washington, Fulton, Center, and Tompkins. 
Designed originally as a series of stalls and stands, where the mer- 
chant or other citizen, with basket on arm, could meet the farmer face 
to face, the business has expanded so enormously that the good-will of 
some of these stands is worth from $10,000 to $50,000, and there are 
many which cannot be purchased at all. Men who have built up a busi- 
ness and prospered by it do not care to remove and thereby enable the 
market officials to dispose of the stand for a large sum of money. There 
are marketmen who hire stalls and do not occupy them, preferring to 
do business outside, but to retain possession of their stands, thus pre- 
venting other persons from getting them. 
The practice with farmers is to gather around the market with their 
wagons. as early as 9 o’clock in the evening of the day preceding that on 
which they expect to sell their produce. They must take their position 
in regular order and pay their fees, when they remain unmolested. 
When the market opens in the morning, the producers may deal directly 
with hucksters if they wish, or they may, if they do not care to wait, 
put their goods in the hands of middlemen, who, for a commission of 10 
per cent. for perishable articles, of 25 cents per barrel for potatoes or 
apples, will sell tMis produce for them and make returns. Sometimes it~ 
is advantageous for the producer to dispose of his articles through the 
commission merchant, especially when the market is glutted, or when 
he may be unable to be present in person. The producers and huck- 
sters can remain in and around the market as long as they please, the 
oid rule requiring them to leave at 12 o’clock noon being now obsolete. 
Producers van, if they desire, sell to any other person than a huckster 
or commission merchant outside the market, and can deliver goods to 
hotels or private houses if they wish. ! 
As buyers of food, the population of New York can be divided into 
three classes. There are the upper 20,000, who live in five-story brown- 
stones, and spend from $5 to $10 daily in the purchase of perishable food 
and asmuch more tor pantry articles. Forsuch, nearness toa market-house 
is a prime necessity ; hence the steady increase in the number and neat- 
ness of outfit of grocers’ and butchers’ establishments on or near fash- 
ionable streets. The proprietors of these go to Washington, West Wash- 
ington, and Fulton, as wholesale houses, and take the cream of all that 
comes, the tenderloins, the fat chops, the finest chickens, the fattest tur- 
keys, paying well and expecting their customers to pay better. In New 
York and Brooklyn there are 100,000 families that buy liberally and in- 
tend to have good food, but always with more or less regard to economy 
