16 BULLETIN 682, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
Thus it is seen that while expert judges of quality will pay high 
prices for butter of exceptional quality and that while the local coun- 
try creamery marketing system does differentiate between different 
grades of butter, the highest grades do not always retail at the highest 
prices. Many lots of country creamery butter, scoring equally as high 
as samples of “special brands,” were retailed at prices 5 or 6 cents 
per pound lower. 
EFFECT OF DIFFERENCES IN TYPE OF RETAILERS. 
In Table 8 it is shown that some retailers made larger margins of 
profit by selling butter substitutes than they did by selling the ordi- 
nary grades of creamery butter. It is noteworthy, however, that as 
a general rule most retailers took a larger margin on the higher 
grades of butter than they did for Firsts or Seconds. Not all retail- 
ers aim to handle butter at a profit, for many grocers sold butter at 
unusually small margins in order to draw trade for other goods 
which presumably were being sold at fair margins of profit. Table 5 
gives some comparisons in the volume of business, the kind of butter 
and butter substitutes handled, the comparative selling prices, and 
the margins at which butter was handled by different kinds of retail 
establishments. 
MUNICIPAL MARKET STANDS. 
The retail stands in public or central market places had the largest 
average weekly sales. These stands, like the dairy stores, generally 
sold only dairy products and eggs. Another distinguishing charac- 
teristic of this class of retail stores is that they make no deliveries of 
goods and all sales are for cash. In Philadelphia and New York 
this class of retailers supplied a considerable portion of the more 
discriminating class of consumers who exercise care in selecting their 
goods. The quality of a large portion of butter handled by this 
class of dealers was necessarily exceptionally high to meet the 
demands of their trade. (See Table 5, p. 18.) 
DELICATESSEN STORES. 
Under the class designated as delicatessen stores are included small 
family grocery stores which do not maintain a delivery service and 
whose average weekly sales are comparatively small. In the aggre- 
gate the percentage of the consumers in Chicago and New York who 
secure their butter supply as well as other staple groceries from this 
type of stores is large. Retailers of this class were found to be the 
poorest judges of quality in the goods they bought, and their average 
buying and selling prices were higher than those of dealers of any 
other class. In some cities many of these small retailers have sought 
to overcome this handicap through an arrangement whereby all pur- 
