Proceedings of the Farmers^ (Jluh. (555 



fanner who made it. lie sells every week, on Wednesdays ami 

 Saturdays, at stand No. 555, in the farmers' market, Philadelphia. 

 In that city there are no intermediaries, through whose hands the 

 butter slides like the monkey's cheese, losing a nibble on one side 

 and a Ijite on the other, till the farmer finds himself paid in skim- 

 milk and the middleman in cream. ]f a farmer near Philadelphia 

 makes such butter as this, he sells directly to the consumer. If his 

 make commands a dollar a pound, as this does, lie and not the mer- 

 chant gets the beneiit. Yet Philadelphia is a great city. The most 

 of its butter is brought thirty, forty, and sixty miles to market. In 

 handling some kinds of produce, there are practices which we can- 

 not say are just or legal. For instance, when an article like rhubarb 

 is sent, the handler has been known to cull the lot, sell the choice at 

 twenty and twenty-four cents a package, get rid of the leavings at 

 sixteen cents, and return sale to the farmer at sixteen cents for the 

 whole. The practice of returning to the farmer only what the smallest 

 or poorest of a lot has brought, is quite common. The farmer can 

 get about as much for a second-rate article as he can for a choice 

 product, because the middleman generally pockets that difference, 

 and says nothing. On the other hand, there are foul practices which 

 cannot be sufficiently ri:)probated ; tarmers who fill two-thirds of a 

 barrel with small apples and top out wnth big fruit; men who put 

 old butter at the bottom of a tub, who water milk and dilute vine- 

 gar. This ViQ reprobate just as much as we do the grasping and 

 trickery of non-producers. Farmers often, very often, shi]:* to a man 

 who does not make it a business to dispose of the article sent. For 

 instance, butter is shipped to a flour merchant, eggs to a fish dealer, 

 poultry to a potato man, or cheese to a hardware house. There is 

 no cure for this but information on the part of the farmer. Large 

 dealers, and those who live near, generally ()])tain this knowledge; 

 but those who live afar, who read our weekly paper, and work liard, 

 who must make every edge cut and every ham tell, whose farms are 

 carpeted with mortgages, and whose families are large, how can 

 they be expected to know all the' ins and outs of New York, all tha 

 tricks of trade, all the wiles of the adversary ? I have heard of an 

 instance which will illustrate the machinations that are set for the 

 unwar}' step. A farmer from New Jorsey, some years ago, came 

 into the New Y<>rk market, and, by honest deal, built up a wide 

 business. Evil men envied him, and conspired to recommend as a 

 bookkeq>er a man of singular ability in forcing a balance, no matter 



