THE MARKET SYSTEMS OF THE COUNTRY. QAG 
Of one dollar paid by the consumer, the producer generally gets 70 cents on butter, 
cheese and eggs, 65 cents on apples and hard pears, 35 to 45 cents on soft fruit and 
berries, and on green vegetables 50 cents. Out of this he must pay the freight to the 
place where the fruit sale is made in the city, provide the packages, pay return freight 
on them, incur all the expenses of picking and packing, and all the risks of loss pre- 
vious to the first sale. 
The retailer who has a stall 20 feet square in the market, ora shop 20 by 60 feet, 
sells all the produce of two dozen orchards and gardens, covering an area of several 
hundred acres, and receives as much for the labor of himself, one clerk, perhaps, and 
a teamster, who delivers his merchandise to the consumers at their houses, as the two 
dozen orehardists and gardeners. The retailers do not get rich, but they live with 
more ease and in a more expensive manner than the farmers who have done the chief 
work, furnished most of the capital, and incurred all the risks. The producers get 
little, the consumers pay much; the middlemen take the bulk of the profit. No 
orchardist. or gardener has his own retail establishment in the city, nor is there any 
cobperative association of any class of agriculturists to sell their produce, except in 
the wine business, and that partakes of the nature of a manufacture. ; 
Middlemen are and always will be indispensable, and they must be paid. The far- 
mer may carry his produce to the bouse of the consumer, but then he becomes a mid- 
dleman for the time; the consumer may go to the garden to make his purchases, but 
he, too, becomes a middleman. Producers and cousumers generally cannot meet, and 
the transactions between them must go through the hands of others. But the number 
and the profits of middlemen are disproportionately large, and as they contribute 
nothing to production, and are burdens on the producing classes, it seems to be the 
interest of the general public that they should be reduced as much as practicable. 
It sees impossible, however, to make any reductions without departing from princi- 
ples of business sanctioned by custom and long experience. We have in San Fran- 
cisco five large uarket-honses, each of which has tive to ten small stalls where vegeta- 
bles and fruits are sold. One large stall could do all the business at less expense; but 
if the proprietor of this large stal] could drive out all the little ones, instead of making 
fruit cheaper for the consumer he would probably charge them the same price, and put 
the profit in his pocket. Even if he should prowise to reduce the price to the con- 
sumer and inerease it to the producer, we would fear to give him the monopoly of the 
privilege of selling fruits and vegetables in that. market and in its vicinity. It is evi- 
dent, however, that the only improvement must come from a reduction in the number 
of middlemen, systematizing their business, and holding them to account. 
Our laws permit, and public opinion encourages, cobperative movements; but in frit 
and veyetables, which differ greatly in value when first fit for market and are seri- 
ously injured by delay and carelessness in seuding to market, codperation % beset by 
serions obstacles, yet it might no doubt be managed with success, and it seems to be 
our chief hope for a decrease of the evils which accompany the present method of 
placing farm produce within convenient reach of the consuniers. 
Many frauds are committed by the agents who receive provisions for the San Fran- 
ciscu market on commission, in misrepresenting the prices and reporting stocks as 
spoiled and ansold, when, in reality, they have been sold in good condition ; but these 
frauds seem to be beyond reach, as a class, as long as the present system is maintained 
aud men are dishonest. 
The only municipal regulations of San Francisco affecting marketmen are those fix- 
ing the licenses which they must pay. Peddlers of provisions selling from wagons pay 
$20 per quarter for each vehicle used; venders in market-houses pay $4 per stall per 
quarter. The city has no market-bouse or market-square, and, although large quanti- 
ties of vegetables are sold from wagons which occupy stands in the street, uo ordi- 
nance authorizes them to occupy any street or fixes the times at which they may sell 
or at which they must move. Sansome street, near Washington, is crowded every 
morning, from five to eight o’clock, with wagons laden with kitchen vegetables, and 
with the purchasers, but the marketmen get permission to occupy their stands, not 
from the city authorities, but from the owners of the lots fronting on the street. San- 
some is a narrow street and has no advantage for the marketmen, except that the 
business is established there. 
The mischiefs of a false system of distribution are admirably illustrat- 
ed in this elear recital of our correspondent on the Pacifie slope. The 
practical result is that 10,0¢0 bushels of pears fell to the earth and 
rotted in the orchards of Santa Ciara, or were thrown by the bushel to 
the pigs, while the price of a pear on a street-stand in San Francisco, 
50 miles distant, was five cents. The small farmer on the plainsof Ala- 
meda is discouraged because he can get nothing for what he raises, and 
the small shopkeeper in the city across the bay is discouraged because 
his gains are frittered away in unjust profits at the market-lhouse. 
