CHAPTER XVI 

 MARKETING PROBLEMS 



COULD any possible economics in the cost of production 

 be supplemented by increased returns from sales, even 

 assuming that the prices paid by the consumer remain 

 the same ? 



One comes here to a whole range of complicated 

 problems in respect to marketing conditions problems 

 that represent the greatest difficulties of the New 

 Agriculture movement. So much is this the case that 

 co-operative sale is now generally regarded as the goal, 

 rather than the starting-point, of that movement. It 

 is with co-operative purchase of agricultural neces- 

 saries that the commencement is invariably made, and 

 not until the lessons to be derived therefrom have been 

 well learned can the second and more difficult stage 

 be entered upon. Past conditions of British agricul- 

 ture and present conditions of our national food-supply 

 have combined to raise up merchants, agents, and 

 middlemen of all types, who do not produce, but who 

 import, buy, sell, and distribute, representing, it may 

 be, quite a number of profits that are gained between 

 those who grow and those who consume. This vast 

 army expects not only to live, but to prosper and grow 

 rich if it can on these intermediate profits, and it 

 has already lived so long and in many instances become 



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