280 
American Agriculturist, October 25, 1924 
WM.LOUDEN 
First to invent water bowl 
that did not furnish water 
by gravity system—that 
prevented spread of con¬ 
tagious disease among 
cows through water. 
Extra Dollars Gaming In 
While Ybu Sleep 
You, too, can make more money from your 
cows this winter, with no additional feed expense, 
if you’ll keep drinking water before them day 
and night. 
LoudenManure 
Carrier —head 
and shoulders 
above any other 
carrier made. 
HAIM 
Ten per cent gains in milk flow are commonly reported 
by users whose cows have the benefit of Louden Water 
Bowls. Figure it out for yourself and see how much more 
clear money this would mean to you in six months after 
allowing for the cost of the Bowls. 
Figure These Savings Also 
Add to this extra income the value of the tank heater 
fuel you save and the time and labor saved through avoid¬ 
ing the disagreeable job of turning the cows out-of-doors 
to water every day. 
From the standpoint of sanitation, Louden Water Bowls, 
which absolutely prevent the spread of disease from one 
cow to another through their drinking water, may save you 
the loss of several high priced cows (it’s always the best 
ones that go wrong) during a single season of close stabling. 
Whether you have two cows or two hundred. Louden 
Water Bowls offer you one of the biggest money-making 
investments you can make. In fact, Water Bowls alone will 
soon pay for a full outfit of modern barn equipment, in¬ 
cluding Stalls, Stanchions, Manure Carrier, etc. 
Write today for fully illustrated descriptive matter and 
all the details about Louden Water Bowls. Just check the 
coupon and mail it now, while you’re thinking of it. 
Louden Steel Stalls and 
Stanchions —neat.simple 
and strong. Most sanitary 
and durable. 
Louden Pens, Manger 
Divisions, Feed Carriers, 
Cupolas, Bull Staffs, Hay 
UnloadingTools,Barnand 
GarageDoorHangers.Hog 
Equipment,Roof Windows 
“Everything for the Barn’ 
Get Barn Plan Book- 
112 pages of practical 
facts that save money on 
barn building or remodel¬ 
ing. Illustrates 50 barns 
with floor plans. Check 
and mail coupon today. 
There’s no obligation. 
The Louden Machinery Company 
4510CourtSt. (Est. 1867) Fairfield, Iowa 
Branches: Albany, Tf. Y., Chicago, III, St. Paul, Minn. 
LOUDEN 4510 Court St., Fairfield, Iowa. 
Send me without charge or obligation: 
[ ] Details on Louden Water Bowls 
[ ] Details on (what?)... 
Name... 
■ Town. 
gpnuif hoi 
**EVERYTHING FOR THE BARN” 
R. F.D..State. 
I expect to build (remodel) a bam 
E (date)...for (how 
many)..horses.cows 
1 Send me the Louden Barn Plan Book. 
Our 
Guarantee 
is behind everything you buy from 
Satisfaction to our customers 
or your money back is our policy. 
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What Consumers Pay For 
An A. A. Radio Talk Broadcast from IVEAF 
F OOD is used by 
everybody. Food 
is tasted and tested 
by all. It is a more 
common subject for consideration by all 
people than is clothing, shelter or even 
the weather. Dairy farmers often wonder 
why a raise of one cent a quart in milk 
causes such a stir among consumers while 
a jump in the price of gasoline or an in¬ 
crease in the price of silks passes by with¬ 
out comment. Food comes before the 
minds of all people at least three times 
each day and in one way or another before 
many people several more times each 
day. It lends itself to comment easily. 
The old high cost of living slogan was 
aimed principally at the food cost prob¬ 
lem. As is so often the case with things 
that are very common the actual facts 
concerning food costs are little under¬ 
stood. We take altogether too much for 
granted. Someone tells us that middle¬ 
men profiteer and lienee food is high or 
we read somewhere that in a certain 
state one farmer out of every four 
owns an automobile of some kind and 
that is the reason why bread loaves 
are smaller than they used to he when 
these farmers were contented to drive 
horses. 
By A. G. CLARK 
Chief Bureau of Markets, New Jersey 
State Department of Agriculture 
Must Keep Studying Food Costs 
We have always held as a nation that 
our public schools were the bulwark of 
our democratic form of government. In 
a nation of one hundred and ten million 
people, living in one of the largest coun¬ 
tries of the world and at a time when 
communication has jumped from the 
stage coach to the radio in less than a 
century, and when transportation has 
conquered the air above and the water 
beneath in little more than a decade, we 
have got to appreciate the need of educa¬ 
tion for adults. A person may be way 
behind the times in a lapse of five years 
if he stops learning when he leaves the 
public school. 
So with this always popular subject of 
food costs many of us are just where we 
were when our inquiring young minds 
were given a problem of dividing an 
orange and a half into six equal parts. 
We must forget our taken-for-granted 
facts and analyze our problem as we have 
it to-day. This should be done with an 
open mind, placing responsibilities here 
or there without fear or favor. .■ 
As a starting place for our adventures 
in the realm of food economics, we can all 
agree on a few fundamentals. 
• Services We Pay For 
In the first place, we must have a 
plentiful supply of food and it must be 
constant. We can put up with reasonable 
fluctuations in price so long as storage 
operators protect us from the periods of 
famine which used to be the threat of ex¬ 
istence to all peoples and still is to two- 
thirds of the world’s population. 
Secondly, it must be wholesome and 
healthful. Because of our modern sani¬ 
tary precautions it may be necessary to 
add a cent or two on to the price of every 
quart of milk; but do any of us want to 
go back to the open milk can and the 
cloud of flies? 
Third, it is desirable to have our foods 
carried in stock by a merchant who pro¬ 
vides some or all of the following services 
for us: quantity, variety, advertising, 
promptness, accessibility, attractive dis¬ 
plays, credit, delivery. 
Others in Service Chain 
customers. Back of 
the wholesaler is the 
carlot receiver in the 
large cities, and then, 
of course, the storage man comes in, the 
manufacturer, the broker, the carlot 
shipper at the country points, all of whom 
are the modern consumers’ best friends, 
ever alert to serve and to save. Taken 
altogether we have a great service chain 
which serves the humblest American 
family in a way which kings could not 
conceive fifty years ago. 
An Analysis of This Service 
Let us analyze these services and decide 
for ourselves if we can reduce them and 
open up the way for such savings to be 
shown in reduced retail prices. 
Quantity. Large quantities can be bought 
cheaply and a reasonably large store handling 
large quantities of food has certain advantages. 
In speaking of quantity we ought not to forget 
the advantage of consumer quantity buying. 
Twenty grocery store operators found that 
nearby fruits and vegetables were handled 
on a margin only half as large when their 
sales were in half-bushel lots as when their 
sales were in quarty peck lots. Many homes 
could practice to advantage quantity buying 
of potatoes and apples in the fall as well as of 
certain canned goods. Any retailer must add 
a greater margin to a dollar’s worth of sales 
when made in quarty peck sales than when it is 
made in one straight sale. 
Variety. One brand of manufactured foods 
or at most two should be enough. The same 
principle could be followed economically in 
the number of kinds of fresh fruits. Why de¬ 
mand plums when the storekeeper has a stock 
of peaches that day? 
Advertising. Judicious advertising is the 
very best means of education in this business 
but money may easily be spent unnecessarily, 
which of course has to be added to our food 
costs. 
Promptness. Thrifty people will wait during 
the rush hours and will readily learn to spread 
their shopping out over the entire day. Three 
clerks very busy for three hours and not busy 
for five cost more than one clerk who is busy 
eight hours. 
A Public Market That Attracts 
Accessibility. If we require a grocery store 
or a meat market in each block we are going to 
have too many small businesses. In Perth 
Amboy, N. J., a thousand or more housewives 
come an average distance of three-quarters of 
a mile to buy fresh fruits and vegetables from 
a City Public Market. An economical store¬ 
keeper can attract buyers, even if his store is 
in ail out-of-way place. Accessible places often 
cost more in taxes, rent, etc., than places on side 
streets or a little out of the shopping district. 
Attractiv'e displays. The large expensive show 
windows are beautiful to look at but when one 
recognizes the dollar sign and knows that the 
cost dollars have to be added to the commodity 
prices, they do not look quite so tempting to 
the thrifty home buying agent. Attractiveness 
is a question of appreciation. A display of good 
products, moderately priced with other indica¬ 
tions of cost-reducing factors, looks mighty 
attractive to some of us. 
Credit. Bookkeepers get fifteen to fifty 
dollars per week salary. It makes quite a 
cost factor to a $300 per week sales total. 
Then, of course, a certain proportion of charge 
accounts are never paid. Wholesalers, jobbers 
and manufacturers demand cash within ten 
days from the retail merchant. Wealthy 
people particularly are often very slow payers. 
Credit is an important cost factor. 
Delivery. The speaker has been told of a 
woman who ordered a yeast cake delivered 
immediately a mile from the store and on the 
sixth floor. Doubtless a fifty cent loss at the 
least was incurred on such a transaction. Some 
one, of course, had to pay it back on other 
articles. 
No one questions that these services all 
cost. Few merchants know what propor¬ 
tion of their total costs are chargeable to 
each one of these factors, but we can 
readily recognize that taken together 
they must make quite a tax upon every 
article bought, stored, and sold by a 
retailer. Then, of course, behind the 
retailer is the wholesaler who also provides 
many services for his retail merchant 
Many Too Opinionated 
Adults are prone to be opinionated and 
prejudiced. The Government market 
reports offer a great scope of information 
to all those who will familiarize themselves 
with them. Many of our mothers knew 
just which varieties of apples were best 
suited for every purpose. To-day the 
young housewife buys Rome Beauty 
apples for fresh eating and Stayman Wine- 
sap for baking and throws them all away. 
(<Continued on page 296); 
