70 THE MARKETING OF WHOLE MILK 



a somewhat higher rate. Such zones have been established 

 around Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and other east- 

 ern cities. Chicago, however, has no such zone rate. For 

 larger cities the zone system is usually considered desir- 

 able, since it facilitates the establishment of milk price 

 quotations. 



Section j. The Middleman Function 



One can scarcely pick up a paper or magazine without 

 finding therein a tirade against the middleman wherein 

 the language varies from moderate criticism to such de- 

 nunciatory adjectives as "unscrupulous," "greedy," 

 "preying," "robbing." One might well gain the impres- 

 sion widely prevalent that the middleman is at best an 

 unnecessary evil; that he places himself at the gate through 

 which the necessaries of life must pass on their way from 

 producer to consumer and lets nothing go by without tak- 

 ing his toll. As a matter of fact, however, the middleman 

 performs a function which is as needful and which is as 

 truly a service as production itself. Indeed he does actu- 

 ally produce when he adds value to a commodity by plac- 

 ing it at the consumer's door at the moment when wanted 

 and in the quantity desired. This, being true of commodi- 

 ties in general, is all the more true of milk, a perishable 

 commodity which must for the most part be consumed 

 within forty-eight hours from the time that it is produced. 

 Some few persons can, of course, obtain their milk directly 

 from the producer. This is done to a small extent in every 

 town. Perhaps an occasional consumer with no pressing 

 duties gets his daily supply from a neighbor after the milk- 

 ing hour, or perhaps a farmer on his way to a condensery 

 or creamery leaves a can or a bottle of milk at a few homes 

 in the city, or possibly, as in the case is most small towns. 



