STUDIES IN EGG-MARKETING 785 



money returns without appreciable delay. This is an important 

 reason why the country merchant catered to the egg-and-butter 

 trade. Another motive also prompted the merchant to deal in 

 farm products. He soon realized that farmers were prone to 

 make practically all purchases at one store, and that the choice 

 of a store depended mainly upon what the farmer regarded as 

 the best market for his produce. 



Competition between merchants for the farmer's trade stimu- 

 lated them to make as favorable quotations as possible. The 

 merchant gradually became accustomed to this showing on the 

 egg-and-butter business, however, and did not expect any direct 

 gain from this source. To him the great gain was indirect. The 

 merchant was, of course, running the store for the sake of a 

 profit, but he was compelled to regard the handling of eggs not 

 as a business in itself but as a means to other business. Taking 

 in eggs and butter meant selling goods from the store. 



It was the sales of merchandise that became the source of 

 profit. The prices charged for different kinds of goods were 

 made so high that the resulting gains brought full return to the 

 merchant for his trouble and risk in handling the farmer's 

 produce. The distribution of these profits among different 

 classes of merchandise had to be made according to "what the 

 traffic would bear." Only a small margin was possible on certain 

 staple articles such as granulated sugar, flour, kerosene, and 

 coffee. The highest percentages of gain were therefore applied 

 at varying rates on other classes of goods the values of which 

 were not so well known to the consumer. 



Attention has thus far been called to certain advantages of 

 the early method of egg-marketing both to the farmer and to the 

 country merchant. Such a marketing agency was sufficient in 

 itself to the extent that the local market was large enough for 

 the unloading of the farmer's product. The very existence of 

 this sort of business between the farmer and the merchant 

 on any considerable scale, however, gave rise to the need of a 

 class of dealers elsewhere who could receive shipments of farm 

 produce from the country merchants on practically a cash basis. 

 Recognizing the opportunity afforded by this need, certain men 



