THE MARKETING OF MILL FEEDS. 15 



which they are not liable. How this happens is not generally under- 

 stood, but is easily explained. 



The freight allowances on delivered shipments are customarily de- 

 ducted from the seller's invoice, but as many shippers have under- 

 standings with transportation companies that all of their shipments 

 are to be handled " freight to be prepaid," the invoices of shippers 

 which have made such arrangements will show in the column on the 

 invoice, used for the purpose of indicating the freight allowance, that 

 no freight will be collected, i. e., " freight prepaid," and the gross 

 amount of the invoice will be shown in the outer column and will be 

 collected by draft. 



Through the oversight of railroad employees many shipments are 

 allowed to go forward " freight collect," although instructions from 

 the shipper were to collect the freight from him. The result is 

 that the buyer not only pays the freight when making payment of 

 the gross amount of the invoice but he is also asked to pay freight 

 to the railroad agent upon arrival of the shipment. It is, therefore, 

 very important for the buyer to check carefully all invoices with 

 his freight bills to avoid the double payment of freight charges. 

 Charges that may have accrued while the shipment is in transit and 

 that are due from the shipper, such as diversion and demurrage, 

 will be found readily and claims for such items should be lodged 

 with the seller as promptly as possible. 



While familiarity with rules and definitions enables the country 

 feed dealer to carry out the various operations incident to a trans- 

 action in feedstuffs, it does not necessarily qualify him to carry on 

 his feed business successfully. He must study closely the conditions 

 in the principal sources of supply, which may be thousands of miles 

 away or may be close to the consuming section in which he is located. 

 Frequently for many reasons requirements may be purchased in 

 ijeighboring markets to better advantage than in distant producing 

 markets. Particularly in cities or towns with more than one feed 

 dealer and where there is more or less competition it is usually well 

 worth while for dealers to acquaint themselves as fully as possible 

 with prevailing conditions, such as supply, demand, and stocks on 

 hand in distant markets. 



HOW TO STUDY MARKET CONDITIONS. 



The associative action of jobbers, brokers, and wholesale dealers 

 has resulted in the formation of exchanges and trade organizations. 

 One of the functions of these organizations is to collect and dis- 

 seminate market prices and information, which makes it possible 

 for the feed trade in the large shipping and distributing markets to 

 keep posted relative to conditions affecting their business. Country 

 dealers and cooperative societies, however, are not always in a posi- 

 tion to avail themselves of the services of the exchanges and are 

 largely dependent on the generally bullish ideas of visiting salesmen 

 in forming their opinion of conditions. 



A large number of trade journals devote space to the discussion 

 of feedstuffs conditions in various markets. While no doubt much 

 of the information is valuable, it has often been said that, as most 

 of it is obtained from firms that specialize in the feeds they discuss, 



