6 BULLETIN" 1002, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
many municipalities recognize, whether consciously or unconsciously, 
the potential value of such markets to the community. In colonial 
times, when the villages and towns were intimately connected with 
the surrounding agricultural country and when' their dependence on 
the farmers was more obvious than to-day, public markets were 
established as municipal institutions as a matter of course, and 
markets under any sort of private ownership were practically un- 
known. For the most part the few open markets under control of 
producers or other private persons or associations that exist to-day 
have been established where economic conditions made such agencies 
desirable but where municipalities failed to realize their obligations 
and opportunities indirectly to facilitate food production and dis- 
tribution, or where, not content to have their public markets self- 
supporting, they sought to operate them as money-making enter- 
prises. 
Best practice among municipalities shows the proper conception of 
municipal public markets to be that they are agencies for facilitating 
and cheapening distribution, both directly and indirectly, and so 
benefiting both producers and consumers. Where this essential na- 
ture of municipal markets is recognized they are operated so as to 
produce an income that will meet all legitimate charges, including 
operating expenses, interest on investment, and proper sinking-fund 
charges, and no more. If small fees will bring in sufficient revenue 
to meet the legitimate charges referred to. such fees are charged. 
The difference between them and possible maximum rental returns 
is considered by the municipality as dividends to producers and con- 
sumers, appearing roughly in the former case as increases over prices 
offered to farmers by commercial agencies, and in the latter case as 
reductions under existing prices in stores or under higher prices that 
probably would prevail in such stores if the municipal markets did 
not exist. Municipalities fully awake to the real functions of a 
municipal market, seek, of course, through their methods of opera- 
tion, to see to it that the difference between fees charged and possible 
maximum fees will not be absorbed wholly by sellers, with the result 
t]iat there would be no savings to consumers. . Every effort should be 
put forth to make the market function both as a direct source of good 
food products at somewhat reduced prices and as a city-wide gov- 
ernor of food prices. It would seem very difficult to justify the 
existence of municipal markets which are operated with little or 
no thought of stimulating production and facilitating distribution, 
or are operated frankly as mechanisms through which to collect 
additional taxes. 
Where producers have felt the need of public markets, but have 
been unable to induce municipalities to operate such agencies prop- 
erly or at all, they have in some instances organized and operated 
