276 OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS 



house to house he can sell them for 2 5 cents a dozen : how much 

 will he make by selling them directly to the consumers ? 



As an arithmetical example, considering only the factors which 

 appear in the statement, this is a very simple problem. It is easy 

 to compute that by selling the eggs from house to house the 

 farmer will make $1.50. But the farmer's practical problem 

 in disposing of his eggs has some very important factors which 

 do not appear in a simple arithmetical problem. Unless he had 

 regular customers for his eggs, he would probably have to call at 

 fifty or sixty houses to sell them. He might have to call at a 

 great many more, and then might not succeed in selling them 

 all. He would find that it was of little use to try to sell eggs to 

 families that had not engaged them in advance, unless he called 

 very early in the morning, before they had ordered eggs from 

 some one else. If he succeeded in selling all the eggs, he would 

 still have to consider whether it paid him better to spend his 

 time, and that of his team, in selling the eggs than in working on 

 the farm. Most farmers find that they cannot afford to peddle 

 produce themselves, and unless some other member of the family 

 can do it without interfering with important farm work, they sell 

 such products as poultry, butter, and eggs to the storekeepers. 



Now take the consumer's side of the case. The ordinary 

 family uses only 2 or 3 dozen eggs a week. If the eggs can be 

 bought at the store for 25 cents a dozen, and at a farm for 

 1 5 cents a dozen, there is an apparent saving of 20 or 30 cents 

 by purchasing them at the farm. But in most cases it would cost 

 the buyer more than 20 or 30 cents to go to the farm and get 

 the eggs, and so he goes to the store for them. 



The storekeeper is the middleman, really serving both pro- 

 ducer and consumer. Every one can see this clearly in cases 

 where there is only one middleman. 



Additional middlemen. If the farmers trading at a country 

 store bring to it more eggs than the people in the town will 

 buy, the storekeeper must either sell them elsewhere or refuse 



