164 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



order that they would realize their fullesl value, we would distribute 

 them over the week as you would spread butter over bread. Let ns 

 sir how they were distributed. You will observe that on Monday 

 there were 27,000 boxes placed on the market,' almost double as much 

 as were pul on the market on Tuesday. Tuesday there were 14,000 

 boxes; Wednesday, 11.0(10; Thursday. 14.000. and Friday. 16,000 boxes. 

 Observe what followed. On Monday the price realized was $2.04 a box 

 for the 27.0(H) boxes. The next day. when the supply was cut nearly in 

 half, the price went up to .+2.24. and then to $2.48, and again to $2.48, 

 and on Friday to $2.57 a box. Now. it is not difficult to understand 

 that if that oversupply on Monday had been intelligently spread over 

 the week, the price received on .Monday would have more nearly approx- 

 imated this average, which was $2.43 a box for those days. But 

 Monday was overloaded. When there are two boxes of pears running 

 after one buyer the price of pears is low and when there are two buyers 

 running after one box of pears, the price of pears is high. That is the 

 law of supply and demand. You cannot get away from it. If the 

 pears offered on .Monday had realized the average for the week of $2.43, 

 il would have made a difference of just 39 cents a box on Monday's 

 sale and that 39 cents a box represents $ld. 60S difference. One day; 



one conn lily: one market. Now. just multiply thai by the number 



of commodities, for every market, for every day. and see what it means 

 to the growers. See the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year that 

 would be wasted. All you would know would be that you got low 

 prices, but yoti could not tell why. This chart shows one of the rea- 

 sons — unintelligent, unscientific, stupid distribution. 



My friend. Mr. Nagle, said to me, "Your figures are all right so far 

 as the other fellows are concerned, but we came out bully. We did 

 line on Monday." Let's see what happened with the pears of the 

 Exchange. We have taken the auction catalogs for that week for the 

 city of New York; there is no getting away from the catalogs, because 

 they are authentic and reliable — they give the facts, not opinions, and 

 we have analyzed the catalogs. We find that our friends, the Exchange, 

 shipped 6,964 boxes of pears to New York' that week. Mr. Nagle 

 explained to me that on Monday he had what is known as "the first 

 call." In order that you may understand what that means it may be 

 necessary to explain that the shippers rotate day by day. Suppose 

 there are three shippers. Shipper Number One would sell first today. 

 Number Two. first tomorrow and Number Three, first day after tomor- 

 row. It is regarded by some as being an advantage to have the first 

 call. Mr. Nagle informed me be had the first call on Monday and there- 

 fore he loaded up on Monday. That lie loaded up is made evident by 

 this fait, thai he pul on the market 52 per cent of his week's offering, 

 3,600 boxes out of 6,964. I am told by someone who took the I rouble 

 to look it up that the Exchange pears on Monday averaged $1.90. That 

 may be or may not be correct, but $2.o4 was the general average. Now, 

 the next day 23 per cent of the week's supply was put on by the 

 Exchange: the next day. 11 per cent; the next day, 7 per cent: and the 

 next day. 7 per cent, and what follows? The members of the Exchange 

 had 52 per cent sold when the price was lowest, and only 7 per cent on 

 Thursday and 7 per cent on Friday, when the price was highest. Is 

 that intelligent distribution? Is that getting all that can be gotten out 



