FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT. 59 



travagantly performed the consumer's price becomes imduly high and 

 market indigestion results. High prices discourage buying — consump- 

 tion decreases — fruit stagnates in the hands of the retailers and jobbers 

 — an oversupply results and finally the grower sells the balance of his 

 crop at reduced prices to a grund)ling tra<le. 



In order to more closely study producing and marketing let us ex- 

 amine the results of an investigation of the distribution of the Cali- 

 fornia orange crop. Oranges are not apples, nor peaches, nor grapes, 

 but the citrus in<lustry offers unusual advantages for a study of 

 distribution and the relative values of the various increments entering 

 into the consumer's dollar paid for oranges would probably hold good 

 for other fruits. 



This investigation was conducted by the California Fruit Growers' 

 Exchange through the co-operation of jobbers and retailers with the 

 Exchange agents in tlie principle cities of the United States and Canada. 



Beginning in January, 1014, and continuing at intervals of two weeks 

 throughout the year tliey recorded the delivered prices of oranges to 

 jobbers and determined the price which the leading jobbers in each 

 market charged the retailers on the same grades and sizes and then 

 determined the retail price to the consumer, both on the box and dozen 

 basis. 



To illustrate the results of the investigations, thirty representative 

 cities and towns were selected. This gave approximately 5,500 reports 

 and by taking the average price paid by the consumer, it was possible 

 to make a distribution of the consumer's dollar back to the grower and 

 show the different factors which enter into the consumers' price: 



These are as follows: 



Per cent of Consumer's Dollar's Dollar. 



Ivetail distributing cost (gross) 33.3 per cent 



Jobbers's distributing cost (gross) 8.2 per cent 



Growers' selling cost 1.5 per cent 



Freight and refrigeration 20.5 per cent 



Packing house cost 7.4 per cent 



Cost of picking and hauling to packing^honse 2.4 per cent 



Proportion returned for fruit on the tree 26.7 per cent 



100.0 



Summarized, the data shows that 3(3.5 i)er cent of the consumer's 

 dollar is returned to the grower in California, of which 9.8 per cent 

 represents the i)roi»ortion allotted to picking, hauling and packing; 

 20.5 per cent represents the allotment to transportation ; 1.5 per cent 

 the grower's cost of selling the jobber, and 41.5 per cent the proportion 

 represented by tlie jobbing and retail gross distributing costs, the latter 

 representing four times as much as the former. 



The amount of the consumer's dollar allotted to each factor referre<l 

 to in the table should not be confused with the cost of handling each 

 of these items. The average cost of picking and hauling a packed box 

 of oranges from the grove to the packing house is 10.5 cents; the aver- 



