Proceedings of Seventeenth Xormal Institute 149 



Eggs came from nearby producers. We had a good market at 

 fair price, but the poultryman killed the business that turned their 

 eggs to gold. They wouldn't play the game. But that belongs in 

 another part of the discussion, though it bears a relation to the 

 next topic, the standardization of product. 



standardization of products 



Standardization of products is the basis of any satisfactory 

 arrangement in merchandizing, and the sooner the farmer learns 

 that, the sooner will he be solving the whole question of marketing. 



It was because our eggs were not standardized that we lost 

 much of our trade. One of the most recent publications of the 

 Federal Department of Agriculture is devoted to this question of 

 standardization as it affects a single product — cantaloupes. " If 

 serious loss is to be prevented," it says, " a great improvement 

 must be made in the average quality of the fruit shipped to mar- 

 ket. More uniformity in containers would eliminate a great deal 

 of market confusion, and the most active demand is for melons 

 uniformly graded and packed, of standard size, put up in stand- 

 ard containers holding forty-five melons. The shipment of ' off- 

 sizes ' is usually unprofitable to the shipper, sei-ves to clog the 

 markets, retard sales, and lower prices on all grades." 



What is true of cantaloupes is equally true of all farm products. 

 Take apples: Why does the ISTew York Central Eailroad din- 

 ing car service, running through the finest apple region in the 

 world, advertise on its bill of fare " Oregon apple — 15 cents?" 

 Because the only Oregon apple that gets East is standardized as to 

 size and appearance and is put up attractively. Yet the best 

 Oregon apple is no better than the best New York apple, and in 

 my own opinion is usually not so good in flavor. But New York 

 apple producers have not come to the point of saving culls for 

 home consumption, and of making the fancy consumer pay for a 

 fancy wrapper. 



Value of Standardization 



Our organization attempted to standardize eggs, or at least to 

 sell eggs which were to come to us as a standardized product. For 

 example, our members obtained from the poultry experiment sta- 

 tion of the Federal Department of Agriculture at Beltsville, Mary- 

 land, all of the eggs produced by that station at the time when the 



