178 PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES. 
MARKET PRICES FOR CANNED SALMON. 
The manner of fixing the selling price at which the canner is willing 
to dispose of his canned product varies slightly in certain regions. 
In May or June, when the spring-packing season has sufficiently 
advanced so that a line can be gotten on the probable pack of chi- 
nook, the highest priced of the pack, the Columbia River canners 
agree upon a price, this usually being high or low, as the pack is small 
or large. . 
Since the Alaska Packers Association was formed, through a com- 
bination of a number of canneries operating in the Territory of 
Alaska, it has packed annually in recent years about one-fourth of 
the salmon canned. It also owns several canneries on Puget Sound, 
thus being quite a factor in that region also. 
In the early days of the.association the custom grew up amongst 
the smaller packers of Alaska and Puget Sound of waiting until the 
association fixed the prices on its own pack, when the others would 
generally fall into line with the same prices for their packs. This 
custom is still in vogue. At no time has it ever been compulsory 
on the part of any packer to adopt the same prices as the association. 
In fact, it has sometimes been the case that, while the small packer 
_ publicly quoted the association’s opening prices, yet in secret he was 
shading it by 24 to 5 cents per dozen on certain grades. In recent 
years this has frequently been the case and the big packers, who 
adhered to the opening prices, have had to sit idly by and watch 
their small competitors underselling them and getting the bulk of 
the business until they had finally disposed of their goods, when, 
necessarily, they would have to drop out of the market until the 
next season. 
Occasionally the other packers da not like a certain quotation of 
the association and make one more nearly in consonance with their 
own views. ‘This happened in 1913, when the association quoted 60 
cents for chums, while the Puget Sound canners quoted 55 cents for 
this grade, and in 1915 when the association quoted 65 cents for 
chums and the Puget Sound interests 70 cents for the same grade, 
thus showing clearly the independence of the smaller packers. 
Owing to a peculiar feature of the salmon marketing business, 
more depends upon the opening prices than appears on the surface 
to the uninitiated. 
Shortly after the first of the year buyers throughout the world 
begin to take stock of their salmon supplies and soon thereafter 
begin placing their ‘‘future’”’ orders. These cover the quantity 
required of each grade, and when the buyer orders through a broker 
the orders are placed subject to a contract similar to the following: 
The undersigned hereby authorizes to book the number of cases of canned 
salmon specified below; said booking to be filed with packers for delivery from 
