THE MARKETING OF FARM PRODUCTS 869 



The Cooperative Wholesale Society supplies nearly all the 

 cooperative stores in England with goods of all kinds, from 

 candy to agricultural machinery. This society brings in about a 

 third of all the Danish butter that comes to England as well as 

 some other butters. It buys its butter through an agent in 

 Denmark who contracts to take all the butter of some particular 

 creameries at a price bearing a certain relation to the Copenhagen 

 quotation. The butter is generally shipped directly from Denmark 

 to the store from which it is to be retailed out, unless the store 

 is near Manchester. In this latter case the butter is shipped to 

 Manchester by a special train from Hull or Newcastle and dis- 

 tributed from there. The society buys at the same price other 

 firms do and sells at about the same price that the ordinary 

 wholesaler pays, and pays, moreover, a dividend of 46. on the 

 ; (or 1.65 per cent), which amounts to 2s. a hundredweight 

 (112 pounds). 



The cooperative societies that retail the butter are generally well 

 organized and successful. They do a regular grocery business and 

 often have other departments also, such as fuel, shoes, dry goods, 

 hardware, etc. They generally pay a dividend of 2 to 3 s. on 

 the j (10 to 15 per cent) on the merchandise bought of them. 

 We enclose sample rule books, etc., of some of these societies. 



A vertical section through the various hands which handle this 

 butter, taken about September i, 191 3, is shown in the table on 

 the next page. 



The table shows that the total difference between what the 

 farmer gets for the butter as it is in his milk and what the con- 

 sumer pays in the grocery store is about 4 cents a pound. 

 This is by far the smallest difference that occurs under any of 

 the methods of sale we have looked into. 



Next in importance to the Cooperative Wholesale Society as 

 an importer of Danish butter is the Maypole Dairy Company. 

 This is a company which owns seven or eight hundred retail 

 grocery stores in various parts of England. They sell large quan- 

 tities of butter, tea, and margarine, but do not deal in vegetables 

 as our grocers do. This company buys its butter in Denmark 

 through a resident director, and ships directly to the stores that 



