There is another way of treating supply and demand schedules, which, for some problems of analysis, is more useful than the schedules presented above. At any point on the market, suppliers are engaged in offering some of their stock of the good and withholding their offer of the remainder. Thus, at a price of 86, suppliers supply three horses on the market and withhold the other five in their stock.

How, then, may we sum up the analysis of our hypothetical horse-and-fish market? We began with a stock of eight horses in existence (and a certain stock of fish as well), and a situation where the relative positions of horses and fish on different people’s value scales were such as to establish conditions for the exchange of the two goods. Of the original possessors, the “most capable sellers” sold their stock of horses, while among the original nonpossessors, the “most capable buyers” purchased units of the stock with their fish.

The demand schedule tells us how many units of the purchase good will be bought at each hypothetical price.26 From this schedule we may easily find the total number of units of the sale good that will be expended at each price. Thus, from Table 2, we find that at a price of 95, three horses will be demanded.