20 BULLETIN 682, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF- AGRICULTURE. 
“makes” or “brands,” but there seems to be a tendency among 
groceries and delicatessen stores to give preference to well-known 
and widely advertised brands. This is shown by the proportion of 
common creamery butter which is sold under advertised brands. 
The greatest portion of “special brand” butter was sold through 
high-class grocery stores, central-market stands, dairy stores, and 
wagon retailers. The largest sales of oleomargarine were made by 
certain retail fruit stores in Chicago. 
From the records of retail grocery stores and wagon dealers, who 
sold largely “on credit” to over 20,000 families, it was possible to 
compare the weekly butter purchases of various classes of trade, in- 
cluding the poorest and the most well to do. The average weekly 
consumption per family for the different classes of trade was as fol- 
lows: Poor class, 1.48 pounds; middle class, 1.97 pounds; well-to-do 
class, 1.60 pounds. The average weekly purchases of the middle- 
class customers of New York were somewhat larger than those of 
the other cities in which these studies were conducted. It is im- 
portant to note that these figures were based on the current sales 
during the winter season, when butter prices are the highest of the 
year. There was evidence toshow that during the season of decreased 
prices many families buy butter which do not use it in winter, and 
that many families which use butter the year around increase their 
average weekly purchases during the season of reduced prices. 
The average prices of common creamery butter sold in retail 
stores that catered mainly to the poorer classes of laboring people 
were generally higher than the prices charged by stores whose 
customers consisted mainly of the better paid class of workingmen, 
clerks, and professional people. This may be explained, in part at_ 
least, by the fact that the stores serving the poorer classes of work- 
ing people were mainly of the delicatessen or the small corner 
grocery type, which were usually unable to buy as cheaply as those 
retailers who purchased their supphes in comparatively large 
quantities. 
CONCLUSIONS. 
There are considerable differences in the prices of creamery butter 
in different cities of the United States, but the wholesale prices in all 
cities follow rather closely the current wholesale prices at which the 
surplus production of the creameries of the Middle West is sold on 
the larger wholesale markets. Differences in distance from the 
sources of supply to the various markets, and hence in transporta- 
tion costs, account for most of the wholesale price variations between 
different cities. There are variations in prices paid by different mer- 
chants in various cities, however, which find their explanation in the 
differences in consumers’ tastes and buying powers. 
