44 BULLETIN 1317, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE- 
records: but among those with sales of 850.000 per year or less and 
among most of those with sales of 850.000 to $100,000, the records 
were usually found to be so crude as to give no accurate indication 
of operating expenses and profits and of the true state of the business. 
For the purpose of obtaining data from a sufficient number of 
dealers to be fairly representative, inquiry was made of all dealers in 
the complete personal canvass of 28 cities and 5 suburban municipa- 
lities, a total of 33 urban districts, and the rural districts of 8 
counties, A partial canvass was made of 6 additional large cities 
(see fig. 1). primarily to locate dealers with adequate accounting 
records. All available complete records of retail straight meat 
markets were utilized and incomplete records were utilized whenever 
it was possible, to complete them by means of data from check stubs 
and other memoranda. It is believed that the results are more 
representative of the trade than could be obtained by any system 
of voluntary reports, even if voluntary reports could be obtained. 
(See Tables 24 and 45.) 
Two hundred and thirty sets of accounting records of individual 
meat markets for 1919 were obtained, giving cost of merchandise 
sold, sales, and the more important items of operating expense in- 
dividually. The total sales of these straight meat markets were 
826.613.266.14. (Table 25.) Most of the straight meat markets sold 
meats exclusively, but some sold as much as 5 to 10 per cent of 
butter, eggs, cheese, vegetables, and other groceries. It is believed 
that in no instance were sales other than meats as high as 20 per cent, 
and very few. if any. were as high as 15 per cent. 
Of these meat markets. 206 were strictly retail, their trade being 
almost entirely with family customers. 73 carry or nondelivery stores 
with total sales of 85.625.590.34 and 133 delivery stores with sales of 
$12,792,085.16. In the remaining 24 stores with total sales of $8,195.- 
590.64. the trade was with hotels, restaurants, commissaries of rail- 
roads, and other large users to the extent of from 30 to 80 per cent of 
their total business. These semiwholesale concerns have operating- 
expenses relatively much lower than those with substantially all 
family trade, and accordingly they have been grouped separately. 
In Xew England and in certain cities where numbers of straight 
meat markets were small as compared with combination stores, com- 
plete accounting records were obtained from a number of combina- 
tion stores. The total sales for 1919 of the 55 combination stores for 
which detailed comparable data were obtained were 811.360.831.86. 
Fifteen chain store systems (Table 26) with a total of 266 
branches and total sales of meats of 819.143.364.10 furnished records 
which could be analyzed with uniformity and in substantially the 
same detail as those of the individual meat markets. For chain sys- 
tems (Table 2T) selling both meats and groceries with 81 branches 
selling meats of a total amount of 84.050.628.62. and 221 branches 
selling groceries of a total amount of 88.759.965.31. operating ex- 
penses were obtained for groceries as well as for meats, giving a 
comparison of operating expenses of meats and groceries within the 
same concerns. 
The gross margin or spread between wholesale and retail prices 
in meats and groceries were obtained in additional chain systems 
with So branches selling meats of a total amount of 8i, 618. 900. 07 and 
108 branches selling groceries of a total amount of §11,852,218.98, 
