But not only is the exchange directly and indirectly of value to producers, it is of equal importance to consumers. It simplifies many housekeeping problems in families where there is more work than can be performed by one domestic employee and not enough for two, by making it possible to purchase for the table and other household purposes many articles made out of the house of the consumer. In a similar way it is of assistance in all families who do “light housekeeping.” It also enables them to purchase articles ready for use which have been made under the most favorable conditions. A specific example of this is seen in the preparation of fruit for winter use. This is at present done in the family of each consumer, but the canning in cities, by individual families, of fruit, often in an over-ripe or a half-ripe condition, is as anomalous as would be the making to-day of dairy products in the same localities. The canning factory has come into existence to meet the demand, but the canning factory cannot meet the needs of private families, since the great perfection as regards results is secured only when articles are handled in small quantities. If all fruits could be preserved in the localities where they are produced, the consumer would gain not only in securing a better article than can now be produced after shipment, but the cost would ultimately be lessened, since fruit could be thus preserved at less expense than when it is shipped to cities and there sold at a price including cost of transportation and high rents. Ripe fruit demands the most speedy and therefore the most expensive modes of transportation; preserved fruits can be shipped at leisure, by inexpensive methods. The consumer must also be indirectly benefited as well as the producer, from the fact that such a policy would prevent a glut in the market of such perishable articles and the consequent discouragement on the part of the producer, sometimes ending in a resolution to grow no more fruit for market, owing to the loss entailed. What is true of the purchase of fruit thus prepared is true also of numerous other articles. Scores of articles such as boned turkey, calf’s-foot jelly, chicken jelly, chicken broth, chicken croquettes and chicken salad, pressed veal, mince-meat, bouillon, plum pudding and many miscellaneous articles could be thus produced under more advantageous conditions than at present. Moreover, many abandoned farms could be utilized as fruit farms, or for other purposes, which are now too remote from shipping centres to permit the transportation of ripe fruit, but could be made of use through the exchange.