MARKETING CROPS. The marketing of crops is not the least iniportant of the various divisions of agriculture. Here the farmer becomes the salesman, and as much tact, com bined with strict integrity, is necessary here as in selling any product whatever. In the city or village, certain individuals become known for their produce being precisely as represented. In this case the buyer of grain takes it, the price being fixed according to the sample shown. If the farmer understands the ruling value of the commodity, but little trouble is experienced in selling in any market where there is competition. If there is no competition so much more the necessity that the seller knows the precise money value of the article to he sold. In the case of grain, he must understand the various grades, and prices. If live stock, the price according to fatness. If wool, the grade, whether it be fine, coarse, middle, or combing wool, and the price according to clean ness, and uniformity in packing. If butter, cheese, eggs, or other minor products of the farrn, the seller must be competent to state the quality exactly, and then he can always fix a price anywhere in reason. The buyer is never deceived in the goods he examines, but may be in the statement of the seller, if he relies on his word. The buyer is an expert, or should be. So should be the farmer. Thus neither party will be deceived by misrepresentations of the other. In the case, where articles are to be con signed to a commission man in some distant city, a statement should be sent, detailing arti cles, quality, number of packages, weights, gross, tare and net, or number of bushels, or count, including bill of lading—is especially important in the case of butter, cheese, eggs, vegetables, fruits, berries, etc. If grain, samples should be forwarded by express, in case it is to be sold to arrive. In the case of perishable articles, as vegetables, etc., that are delivered from teams front day to day, these products should be care fully gathered, washed, when necessary, and tied in bunches, packed in uniform packages, of a bushel or integral parts of a bushel, unless sold by the bushel from the measure. The marketman soon learns to display his products in the most inviting manner, consistent with close packing in the wagon. As to market systems, all large cities are provided necessarily with market laws more or less stringent. In New York the market system includes fourteen or more principal market houses, and the firms of butchers and grocers, distributed over the city, who deal in vegetables and fruit. In St. Louis the regular market houses do the princi pal part of the trade. In Chicago, certain streets, as portions of Water and Market streets are occupied by marketmen, who sell the products consigned to them to butchers and grocers who supply the families direct. It is well under stood, however, that in our great cities the inhabitants can not depend upon getting their supplies at regular market houses, directly from hucksters. This has been fouud to be the case in Boston and New York, and the evils of this sys tem has tended to prevention of this system in the newer cities of the West. Philadelphia bas probably the most perfect system of market houses in the country. Philadelphia has for
generations been noted for the excellence of its market system. The law provides that vege tables, provisions, or fruits, exposed for sale shall not have been previously purchased within the limits of the city. When the city erects a naarket house, one-half of the building remains free for the use of the country people attending the market; and no fees, tolls, or perquisites are to be exacted from them for the use thereof. Persons who send or carry the produce of their farms to market, may sell beef, mutton, etc., slaughtered on their farms; and persons so sell ing such meats, etc., are not liable to any fine for selling in less quantities than one quarter; provided that farmers using the stalls in the market houses for such purposes shall pay a rent or compensation for each stall not exceed ing $20 per annum.. The select and common council annually elect a commissioner of market houses. No person is allowed to sell or expose for sale, elsewhere within the market limits than in the stands specially provided therefor, any fruits, vegetables, or other provisions (except fresh fish, meat, or flour) which have been before purchased within the city of Philadelphia. No person exercising the trade • of a butcher is per mitted to occupy a stand or station without the market house free of rent: and no person is allowed to offer for sale any veal, beef, lamb, etc., unless the same is the produce of his or her own farm, upon any of the streets authorized for the stands for market wagons, under a pen alty of $20. The stalls and stands within the public market houses, and places for the use of which rent may be lawfully charged, are let annually. No person is allowed to use steel yards or spring-balances within the market houses. No person, except farmers bringing the produce of their farms to market, is allowed to sell or expose for sale any butcher's meat in any streets or other highways of the city south of Lehigh Avenue, east of the river Schuylkill, or north of Morris street, in any cart, wagon, etc., nor carry, about the same for sale. The execution of these regulations provides better marketing than some towns of one-fifth her pop ulation. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, in the afternoon, thousands of pounds of butter, poul try, meat, and sausages are sold to consumers by fanners from all the counties within thirty miles of the city. The drawback to this system is that the poor are required to go considerable distances daily for their marketing. Neverthe less, prices should be enough cheaper to make it up, when the produce is sold direct from the producer to the consumer. In Chicago, the market business is all done through middlemen who receive the fruits, vegetables, etc., from the producer, and sell to those who supply the Ern Hies. The comrnission man receives from five to ten per cent., and the retailer from ten to twenty-tive per cent. Nevertheless, but little complaint is heard, except from fruit growers who have to pay a heavy additional tax in the shape of freights, sometimes carried several hundred miles. Chicago is the greatest fruit distributing market in the country, and in no market are fruits and vegetables cheaper or more abundant.