144 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



If it be granted that the agencies engaged in the distribution of farm 

 crops are both honest and etiicient and that there is unrestricted com- 

 petition in the open markets, the development of a permanent and com- 

 prehensive marketing svstem can not be hoped for because the units 

 making up that system are manifestly incoherent and often transitory. 



But it is by no means granted that these agencies are either honest or 

 efficient. 



While it is probably true that the majority of commission men are 

 upright and dependable, the fact remains that the Avhole commission 

 business is under a cloud of suspicion. Apparently its unregulated 

 character has attracted a large number of unscrupulous and designing 

 men. In too many instances their o[)erations have proved highly pi'e- 

 datory and greatly damaging both producer and consumer. Much of this 

 thievery and reprehensible practice is so thinly veiled and so apparent 

 that there is a Avide-spread agitation looking to governmental regulation, 

 and already there is a law on the statute books of Michigan and New 

 York regulating these semi-public agencies. A significant fact in this 

 connection is that the so-called honest commission houses fight govern- 

 ment regulation just as hard as the houses of low standing. 



On the score of efficiency the commission men and the larger agencies 

 are in general as capable as the average business man, but the local 

 brokers and buyers certainly are a motley crowd. The Michigan Grape 

 Belt undoubtedly has its full quota of ^'shoestring'' brokers. A recent 

 caustic remark by a local salesman "that if a man couldn't earn a living at 

 anything else he became a fruit broker" sheds some light on that situa- 

 tion. 



The severest indictment of the ])resent system is its general tendency 

 to "bear" the market to the end that when there is any considerable 

 supply, the prices to the producer are usually forced down to an un- 

 remunerative figure. 



This constant hammering of the market is brought about, primarily 

 by the crafty and resourceful efforts on the part of the outside buyers 

 to buy safely and to anticipate competition. 



The most conspicuous method of forcing down the market is the com- 

 bination of local buyers eitlier by fixing a ])rice or by dividing the terri- 

 tory so that competition is eliminated. This combination of buyers to 

 control prices presents one of the most vicious aspects of the present 

 marketing system and it is the principal cause leading to the formation 

 of co-operative organizations. The farmer finds himself u]) against a 

 stone wall and entirely helpless alone and after submitting to tliis high- 

 way robbery for a time, he realizes that organization is the only remedy. 



Another ecpially reprehensible method of reducing the market, is the 

 practice by local buyers of undcriiuoting the market or advising outside 

 buyers not to buy on account of rai)idly declining market and other 

 fabrications, the purpose being to demoralize the general situation. 



The apple market was demoralized this year by exactly this method. 

 Eastern brokers sent out telegrams early in the season quoting all 

 Avestern markets at |1.25 per barrel. As a matter of fact they could not 

 purchase apples at that price but the telegrams gave the impression 

 of a very weak and dangerous market with the result that the whole 

 apple industry lost heavily. 



Another instance of these practices took place on the local grape mar- 



