THE MARKETING OF FARM PRODUCTS 871 



We will now take the second method of selling butter from 

 Denmark to England, namely, by selling directly to an agent or 

 wholesale house in London or other large city. 



For London most of the butter is brought in by provision im- 

 porters or agents, as they are called, who have their offices in or 

 near Tooley Street at one end of London Bridge. These firms 

 import bacon, hams, lard, cheese, eggs, and some canned goods, 

 as well as butter. As a rule they sell only to wholesale dealers, 

 but sometimes they deal with large retailers. Tradition has it 

 that the Tooley Street firms are importers only and that they 

 sell their goods to wholesalers living in Smithfield. The Smith- 

 field houses are supposed to be the distributive wholesalers who 

 sold the goods to the grocer. Although this distinction still 

 holds roughly, the two sorts of houses are gradually becoming 

 more and more the same. 



The trading in butter and other such goods is done in the 

 Home and Foreign Produce Exchange. The chief market day 

 is on Friday and that afternoon after the selling is finished the 

 committee on quotations issues its weekly quotations of prices. 

 These quotations are so accurate that many contracts are based 

 on them. The way in which they are made is this : the com- 

 mittee is composed of members from both the buying and selling 

 elements of the exchange. The members are chosen in some 

 irregular rotation by the secretary, and no one knows who is to 

 be chosen next. On Thursdays the secretary issues a blank form 

 to each member of the exchange, and on this the members put 

 a record of their sales and their membership number. The blanks 

 are returned in sealed envelopes to the secretary, who copies the 

 sales off onto another sheet of paper. Then the committee meets 

 and looks over the copy of the list of transactions and if anyone 

 of them doubts that any transaction actually took place he says 

 so. All the transactions that are doubted the secretary looks into, 

 sometimes by demanding to see an account of the transaction and 

 sometimes by merely interviewing the buyer or seller concerned. 

 All transactions that actually took place go into the making of 

 the quotations. The following is a sample quotation. 



