232 THE MARKETING OF WHOLE MILK 



City prices have not fluctuated as widely as have prices 

 to producers. Perhaps the main reason for this is the fact 

 that milk consumption is so largely a matter of habit and 

 that dealers find it to be rather expensive to bring back 



Fig. 23. — Relative Wholesale and Retail Milk Prices, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 



consumption to a normal rate in case an increase in price 

 has for a time reduced the consumption. Another reason 

 is that the demand for fluid milk is relatively inelastic, 

 hence consumers would not, even with a very large cut 

 in prices, take enough more milk than they ordinarily do 



