PROCEEDINGS OF THE WINTER MEETING. 73 



be thus disposed of and still leave a margin of profit in these dull times 

 is evidence that we have an unusually profitable business. How many 

 lines of business are there that could live under such a system? How- 

 ever, we have grown into this method of disposing of our fruit, and we 

 shall no doubt be compelled to continue in it for the present .to a con- 

 siderable extent. I am not disposed to make war on the commission men 

 unnecessarily, for I believe that they do the best they can with our fruit, 

 as a rule, and they certainly have played an important part in building 

 up our peach industry; but they are circumscribed by such limitations 

 that they can not dispose of our products with sufficient economy to 

 afford us ample remuneration with an output such as we may expect in 

 the future. I will make this charge a specific one. 



It has been my practice to mark my better grades of ] teaches with 

 name and address, the consignments being made to Chicago. This cus- 

 tom has brought letters from commission men in several places to 

 which the fruit has been reconsigned — from Buffalo, Cleveland, Cin- 

 cinnati, Toledo, and others — asking for consignments to them direct. 



Let us estimate as nearly as possible what proportion of the final 

 selling price it cost to market those peaches which we shipped to Chi- 

 cago and which were reshipped to Buft'alo, making our estimate on a 

 basis of last season's prices. We will assume that the average selling 

 price in Chicago was 20 cents per fifth basket, which I think is sufficiently 

 high. The freight and cartage cost 4 cents per basket and commission 

 2 cents, making 6 cents in all, and our net returns would be 14 cents. 

 The charges to Buffalo from Chicago would perhaps be 4 cents or a 

 little more, and commission 10 per cent., which would bring the price up 

 to about 27 cents in Buffalo. Then there is a buyer's profit, amounting 

 at least to 10 per cent, of the Chicago price, making 29 cents, for v/e 

 must bear in mind that, even if the fruit was not sold to a buyer in 

 Chicago, but was consigned to Buffalo direct by our Chicago commis- 

 sion house, still they had made their returns to us and they stood in 

 the light of buyers, and as such were compelled by self-interest to malce 

 returns to us sufficiently below the probable prices in Buft'alo to leave 

 them the protection that a prudent buyer would need. 



It appears, then, that on the most conservative estimate we can con- 

 sistently make, the peaches that netted us 14 cents in (J'hicago must have 

 sold in Buft'alo for more than double that figure. Suppose we had 

 shipped those peaches to Buft'alo instead of Chicago. The expenses would 

 have been no greater than from Chicago to Buffalo. On the basis of this 

 estimate we should have saved freight to Chicago, 4 cents; commission, 

 2 cents, and a buyer's profit of 2 cents, 8 cents in all, or a saving of 40 

 cents per bushel, over 27 per cent, of the selling price in Buffalo. 



Of all the finit consigned to the commission dealers of Chicago and 

 Milwaukee, only a very small proportion is consumed in those two 

 cities. The larger part by far is sold at points outside, and subject to 

 those unnecessary expenses which I have indicated. From information 

 I have been able to gain I am satisfied that on the whole we scarcely 

 realize more than fifty per cent, of the final selling price of our fruit, and 

 even that price is governed by a comi)aratively restricted market, the 

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