Principles of Marketing

goods and con-| sumption goods?makes it necessary to keep clearly in mindl that the marketing of some agricultural products involves a process for placing them in the hands of manufacturers, and that from this point their distribution is a problem of the manufacturer's market. Products of this nature must be distinguished from others, the distribution of which involves transferring them to consumers in their original form.2 Characteristics of Agriculture.?Agriculture, in contrast with a prevailing tendency in manufacture, is a small scale in- dustry; and unlike manufacture, it is carried on by scattered producers located far from the great body of consumers. Thus the main output of shoes in this country is confined to a relatively small number of factories located in the midst of dense populations, but the hides for the leather used in their manufacture are obtained from cattle raised upon thousands of farms and ranches in the United States and in foreign countries. Even in the manufacture of flour, an industry in which large scale methods are not so predominant, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of farms growing wheat to each mill grinding it into flour. 'There is a sizable literature dealing with the marketing of farm products. Among the more accessible are the publications of the U. S. Department of Agriculture and of the State Agricultural Experiment Stations. Recently the Federal Trade Commission has issued several reports relating to farm products. ...