THE ECONOMICS OF CROP DISPOSAL. 5 



The first suggestion usually offered when this matter of crop dis- 

 posal is discussed is the elimination of the middleman. Tn a more 

 primitive industrial development or with a smaller population we 

 might work out more readily a practicable way to provide direct 

 communication between the producer and the consumer. Probably 

 there is room for much improvement in lessening the cost of living 

 through more extensive cooperative associations of buyers and of 

 sellers. There is also much to be done in the way of preserving 

 perishable products by evaporation, sterilization, and refrigeration. 

 Anything that can be learned in this direction in the way of lessen- 

 ing the cost or extending the use of these methods will react directly 

 in steadying the market in connection with perishable food supplies, 

 and steadying the market is equivalent to increasing the profits of 

 production and at the same time lessening the cost to the consumer. 



"With respect to the cold-storage business, probably the greatest 

 present need is publicity. There is a profound suspicion that cold- 

 storage houses are used more for maintaining high prices on certain 

 commodities than for keeping them cheaply until times of scarcity. 

 In times of plenty and of 1ow t prices it is possible under present 

 conditions for the farsighted and forehanded to fill the storage 

 houses with supplies to be unloaded judiciously and circumspectly 

 on a high market, The requirement of adequate publicity as to 

 the character and quantity of supplies in storage would constitute 

 a long step toward securing economy in our national housekeeping. 

 It seems to me that this is one of the very few ways in which legis- 

 lation may be used to reduce the high cost of living. 



BETTER MEANS OF DISTRIBUTION. 



The next point I wish to make may be illustrated by reference to 

 such ordinary fruits as the apple, the orange, and the banana. Of 

 these three the apple lends itself best to storage and to shipment 

 and is probably the most extensively used and generally esteemed. 

 Yet with all these advantages it is the crop which is subject to the 

 widest price fluctuations and for the future development of which 

 we have the greatest anxiety, speaking industrially; that is, we 

 have the greatest fear of overproduction in the near future, with 

 consequent losses to all producers. The reason for this apprehension 

 lies in the fact that we do not have behind the apple crop such 

 efficient agencies for distribution as exist in the case of the orange 

 and the banana. 



The associated citrus-fruit growers have accomplished the truly 

 marvelous feat of selling during the past two seasons crops of fruit 

 about 50 per cent larger than they had ever had before without caus- 

 ing a break in the market. And this has been done so effectively 



[Cir. 118.] 



