This book has been written to meet the need in schools and colleges for a text covering the general methods and problems of marketing raw materials, farm products and manufactured goods. A broad survey of these methods and problems is a necessary foundation for more specialized studies, for the same reason that a broad survey of economic principles should precede courses in banking, transportation, or labor problems. Raw materials and farm products form the best means of studying marketing methods functionally. The distributive machinery for handling them is not only more complex than that for manufactured goods, but the activities are also more highly specialized, and the functions more clearly defined. For this reason, the discussion in Part I deals with the marketing of these commodities from a functional point of view. The marketing of manufactured products presents a series of problems so complex, so distinct in character, and yet so immediate and practical in every way, that it may be studied by the "problem method." It is for this reason that Part II treats the marketing of finished products largely by means of a progressive series of problems. In this way variety is secured without losing sight of the fact that the entire economic process is a more or less continuous one. Influences affecting the marketing of raw materials and farm products are often reflected in the marketing of finished goods. The reverse is also true. The method of presentation in this discussion takes due cognizance of this fact. |