14 IMPROVEMENT OF THE FARM EGG. 



The agency indirectly responsible for the opposition to this method 

 of buying and for the continuance of the case-count system is the 

 country store. 



THE COUNTRY STORE. 



It has been the custom from the time towns were settled through- 

 out the West for the country store to handle the eggs in most in- 

 stances. 



The peculiar workings of this system, together with its baleful 

 effects, have been well discussed by Milo M. Hastings in Circular 140 

 of this bureau. He says : 



The trips to the general store, necessary to supply the household needs, offer 

 the most convenient opportunity for this marketing; but there is a reason for 

 the general merchant being an egg buyer that is more interesting and far- 

 reaching in its effect upon the egg trade. The merchant buys eggs because 

 by doing so he can control his selling trade. There are two reasons why the 

 farmer trades where he sells his eggs: (1) Because it is convenient to trade 

 at one place, and (2) because he wishes to avoid offending the merchant, which 

 he would do if he broke the established custom of trading out the amount. 



The merchant knows that to buy eggs means to sell goods, and he therefore 

 bids for eggs. His competitors in the same town, as well as in other towns, 

 also bid for eggs. The effect to the merchant of lowering the price of his goods 

 or raising the price of eggs is financially the same. In either case it is the 

 matter of cutting prices under the spur of competition. Now, the articles on 

 which the merchant makes his chief profits are dry goods and notions. Such 

 articles are not standardized, but their real value varies in a manner quite im- 

 possible of estimation by the unsophisticated. On the other hand, eggs are 

 quoted by the dozen, and all who run may read. 



Suppose, for illustration, two merchants in the same town are each doing 

 business with a 20 per cent profit and are buying eggs at 10 cents and selling 

 for 11, the 1 cent advance being sufficient to pay for the labor of handling, in- 

 cidental loss, and a small profit. One merchant concludes to cater for more 

 trade. If he marks his goods down he will gain some extra trade, but people 

 will fear his goods are cheap. But let him put out a placard " Eleven cents paid 

 for eggs," and the farmers will throng his store and be less inclined to question 

 the quality of his goods. This move having been successful, his rival across 

 the street quietly stocks up with a cheaper line of dry goods, and one fine 

 morning puts out a card, " Twelve cents paid for eggs," and more farm wagons 

 will be hitched on his side of the street. The volume of business at the lower 

 profit being insufficient to maintain two men in the town, a mutual understand- 

 ing is gradually brought about by which the prices of goods sold are worked 

 back to the basis of 20 per cent gross profit, but the false price of eggs serves 

 to draw trade from neighboring towns, and is maintained at the higher 

 level. 



As a matter of fact the price paid to farmers for eggs by the general stores 

 of the Mississippi Valley is frequently 1 to 2 cents above the price at which the 

 storekeeper sells the product. Allowing the cost of handling, we have a con- 

 dition prevailing in which the merchant is handling eggs at from 5 to 10 per 

 cent loss, and it stands to reason that he is making up the loss by adding to 

 the prices of his goods. 



