It must be clear by this time that there is some good reason why producers and consumers do not ordinarily deal directly with each other. It must also be equally clear that no middleman or group of middlemen can forge, uninvited, additional links in the marketing chain. Consequently, there must be some economic reason for their existence as such. We can best find this reason by reference to some simple, everyday practices familiar to us all. The typical American farmer knows that in the neighboring town there is a market for his weekly supply of eggs. The people of the town know also that every farmer in the surrounding country has a surplus of eggs. With these facts established, it is obvious that our farmer could, if he desired, dispose of every one of his eggs in the town by peddling them from house to house; also that any housewife in the town could, if she desired, secure her weekly supply of eggs by calling at some farmer's home. The farmer ordinarily does not care to undertake the sale of his surplus eggs among the consumers in the town. The town housewife, on her part, has, let us say, no ready means for going into the country. In either case time and expense are involved in effecting a sale. Neither is willing to take the initiative. Both resort to the local grocer, who can, and usually does, handle the eggs cheaper and with greater satisfaction to both consumer and producer than either the farmer or the housewife could have handled them. The retailer can also render cheap and efficient service in the matter of delivery, if he is not too much incumbered by those who abuse it. The only proof for this statement is that independent delivery systems operating in many moderately sized cities usually charge no more than five cents for delivering an order of any amount. Delivery of a loaf of bread or of a spool of thread under these circumstances imposes a burden on the consumer; and it should, for they are the very consumers that have rendered delivery systems costly. As it is with retailers so it is with middlemen. They have arisen to fill gaps between producers and consumers which neither could or would fill.