REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 33 



An unbroken tendency toward uniformity appears in the case of 

 poultry, since the range between highest and lowest prices dimin- 

 ishes from 28.9 for the first period to 23.5 for the second and to 15.9 

 for the third. 



Both fresh beef and fresh pork seem to have been subject to less 

 uniformity of prices in the third period than in the first, as indicated 

 by increasing range between highest and lowest. The range for beef 

 rose from 8.2 in the first period to 9.4 in the second and to 14.3 in the 

 third. 



The range for pork fell from 14.4 in the first period to 14 in the 

 second, but rose above the first to 16.7 in the third. 



The foregoing examination of range of prices substantially indorses 

 the other jDrocess in pronouncing in favor of a tendency toward 

 uniformity of prices with regard to butter, eggs, poultry, and fresh 

 mutton, and of a tendency away from uniformity with regard to 

 fresh beef and fresh pork. 



SPECULATION. 

 EVIDENCE THAT IT SOMETIMES EXISTS. 



An examination of the record of the prices of commodities prepared 

 for this investigation gives a suspicion that there has been much 

 speculation in some years by the men who keep them in cold storage. 

 One illustration may be given. The egg year 1910-11 had 29 per 

 cent more eggs in cold storage than the preceding year, and yet the 

 price index number went much higher in the months when it is 

 high — October to January — and much lower in the months when it 

 is low — March to July following. 



At a time when there was a plenty of eggs in storage the whole- 

 sale price of eggs soared to 43 cents in Boston in November and 

 December and to 45^ cents in New York for near-by State eggs. 

 There was an apparent mistake of the storage men in overestimating 

 the consumption of the public at exorbitant prices, because so large 

 was the unsold quantity at the beginning of the next egg year in 

 the spring of 1911 that the wholesale price of eggs fell in April to 

 18| cents in Boston and New York, and the storage men dumped so 

 much on the foreign market as to make the greatest quantity of eggs 

 ever exported from this country in a year. 



STORED GOODS AS A PERCENTAGE OF CONSUMPTION. 

 LARGE ENOUGH TO BE OF PUBLIC CONCERN. 



This business of storing foods has grown to such proportions 

 that consumers have a rightful concern with its management for 

 economic as well as sanitary reasons. From tlie returns made to this 

 department by the cold-storage warehousemen, it is inferable that 



23105°— AGR 1911 3 



