STUDIES IN EGG-MARKETING 797 



and at the same time selling other classes of goods such as fruits 

 to be shipped to the locality from the primary market. The 

 transactions thus carried on through travelling agents were ordi- 

 narily made with country merchants. Each agent carried a draft 

 book from the firm he represented in the city. He would buy 

 farm products such as eggs and butter from the country merchant 

 and pay the price with a draft on his company. In order to safe- 

 guard the shipment of the farm products purchased, provision 

 was made so that the country merchant could not cash the 

 agent's draft unless it was accompanied by a bill of lading show- 

 ing that the produce had been shipped to its proper destination. 

 To this end a statement was printed across the face of the draft 

 somewhat as follows : " Original shipping receipt positively must 

 be attached to draft, otherwise it will not be honored." The ter- 

 ritory of each agent usually included from twenty to thirty towns so 

 situated along a railway that all the places could be visited every 

 week or fortnight. Where men travelled thus from one commu- 

 nity to another, it would not have been possible to cover expenses 

 if the buying or selling had been limited to some one commodity. 

 By dealing in a wide variety of products, some for purchase and 

 others for sale, the field work could be carried on at a compara- 

 tively small expense on each of the various products handled. 



This system of cash buying was started through agents from 

 the Twin Cities more than twenty years ago. The business has 

 been constantly growing until we now find cash-buying firms 

 with headquarters in the Twin Cities, Duluth, and in a number 

 of the smaller cities such as Alexandria, Hutchinson, Paynesville, 

 and Willmar, whose agents visit practically every community in 

 Minnesota. These firms differ among themselves both as to the 

 variety of products in which they deal and as to their method of 

 handling these products. The firms are all alike, however, in 

 that each of them does business on a fairly large scale. All of 

 these firms cover relatively wide fields both in their buying and 

 in their selling, and for the purpose of this discussion will be 

 designated as cash-buying firms. 



In order to appreciate the nature of the egg business carried 

 on by cash-buying firms, let us take as one of our types a firm 



