PRINCIPLES OF VALUE AND PRICE 463 



chief importance when he considers consumers in general, most of 

 whom are townspeople. 



In the city, a large city especially, the appearance of an apple is 

 everything and taste nothing, unless the purchaser was once a country 

 boy and enjoyed the freedom of an orchard. For some reason red 

 is a leading favorite as an apple color in this country; indeed, there 

 are some red apples that are miserably poor for eating purposes which 

 sell for good, if not high, prices the principal attraction to the con- 

 sumer apparently being the red color, with subordinate attractions in 

 smoothness and shapeliness. 



The sale of corned beef, cured hams, sausage, and some salt meats 

 of other descriptions is largely influenced by color, the popular preju- 

 dice favoring meat that has been cured and colored with the addition 

 of saltpeter. Sausages and other forms of minced meats are also fre- 

 quently colored by aniline dyes, as are the wrappers of smoked 

 sausage and of ham. It is probable that commercial sausages of some 

 varieties not so colored would find little sale in competition with the 

 colored goods. [Note the bearing of pure food laws on this and 

 similar points. EDITOR.] 



Yellow-skinned chickens have the preference hi parts of this 

 country as against those whose skin is more nearly white. This 

 preference may be on account of the suggestiveness of fat beneath 

 the skin, although, as a matter of fact, chickens store very little fat 

 next to the skin, and then only in certain places, and certainly not 

 on the legs; furthermore, the yellowness of the chicken's skin is 

 inherent, and not derived from the fat beneath the skin. On the 

 contrary, in some European countries the preference is for chickens 

 with the lighter-colored skin. 



A curious preference, entirely unassociated with taste, is the color 

 of eggs. Brown eggs sell for a cent or two per dozen more than white 

 eggs in Boston, and the contrary is true in New York. Let white 

 and brown eggs be mixed, and a dozen of them will sell for less than a 

 dozen of either assorted, and let one or two "dirties" be visible and the 

 price goes still lower, although, as a matter of fact, in any case the con- 

 tents of the eggs are of perfect quality and cannot be distinguished by 

 taste, appearance, or nutritive value, one egg from another. Chicago 

 is said to be undiscriminating with regard to color of egg shells, but 

 San Francisco prefers white ones. In some markets where the brown 

 egg is favored, as in those of England, it is said to be not uncommon 

 to color shells of white eggs with coffee decoction or some dyestuff. 



