240 THE BOOK OF WHEAT 



Wheat flour 



Countries Wheat per bushel per bushel 



Austria-Hungary $0.35 $0.82 



Belgium free 0.10 



France 0.36 0.55 



Germany 0.35 0.66 



Italy 0.44 0.60 



Spain 0.34 0.58 



The Market. Price is always determined in a market. The 

 old proverb, ''three women and a goose make a market," is 

 true, assuming that the women possess some other commodities 

 which they can exchange, for all the essential primary ele- 

 ments of a market are present, namely: A commodity; its 

 owner; and one or more other persons, each of whom wishes to 

 become the owner of the commodity by exchanging it for a 

 quantity of some other goods. The primary origin of the 

 "supply" and the "demand" is external to this market, which 

 is merely the point where the forces of supply and demand meet 

 and attain equilibrium through the exchange of commodities. 

 A market increases in size, complexity and importance as these 

 elements increase in number, as they are modified in form, and 

 as consequent manipulations arise. We found a market at the 

 center of each of the three concentric circles of distribution. 

 The marketing or bargaining is early concentrated in the local 

 market. The local market, so long as it is independent of 

 larger markets, is so limited in all of its factors as to be easily 

 known in every phase and violently affected by every local 

 event of importance. The city market resulted from the con- 

 ditions of supply and demand pertaining to a much larger 

 territory, and is correspondingly more complex. It is not so 

 violently affected by any single event as is the local market, 

 and events tending to opposite results may offset one another. 

 Prices are always a resultant of the forces or conditions of sup- 

 ply and demand that exist in the whole territory tributary to 

 the market, and that have been there concentrated, directly and 

 indirectly. Prices can no longer be predicted from a knowledge 

 of conditions in any one locality. What is true of the city 

 market is pre-eminently true of the foreign or international 



