In many of our cities when the housewife takes her basket in the morning and says that she is going to market, we understand her to mean that she is going to a public square where there is a large open building in which a number of regular dealers rent small booths, and in front of which there is a long row of farmers' wagons containing farm produce for sale. We think of the market as a place where a number of sellers of produce of various kinds meet purchasers of their wares. In an earlier day it was usual in all towns to have such public markets, but because of changes in means of communication and transportation the term market, as generally understood, has ceased to denote a particular place.

The word market has come to mean a number of buyers and sellers of a commodity whether they all ever get to the same place or not. Some goods can be graded and described in such a way that it is not necessary for the purchaser to see them. He can judge by the description. In the case of such goods it is not at all necessary for the buyer and seller to meet. The purchase may be made by mail, or telegraph, or telephone. Hence the market has ceased to be for these commodities a narrowly circumscribed geographical area. All of the buyers and all of the sellers throughout a whole country, or throughout several countries, may constitute a market in this sense. This would be true of the wheat market, or the cotton market, or the market for well-known stocks and bonds.

The value of the commodity might vary in different parts of the country, owing to difficulties of transportation, or for certain other reasons, but the value in one part of the country would have an influence on the value in another part of the country. In the case of many other kinds of goods the market may be narrower geographically, but to-day we think of the persons who buy and sell a commodity, whether they arc near together or scattered, as the market, rather than the place where they happen to get together to buy and sell.