772 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



movement of produce with care and dispatch between local sources 

 of supply and the central distributing points that the jobber was 

 induced to enter the field and buy outright. Previously, the extent 

 of the risk involved had rendered it seemingly impracticable to 

 open up a jobbers' avenue of trade through the primary market. 



The earliest attempts at buying produce outright from primary 

 markets were made by men who actually entered the local sources 

 of supply and made purchases from local shippers. These field 

 men would handle a variety of produce, some for purchase and 

 some for sale. 



Because of the limited amount of each kind of produce handled 

 it was necessary to distribute the field man's expenses over a vari- 

 ety of both purchases and sales in order to carry on the business 

 successfully. Only after a personal knowledge of the character of 

 the local shipper had been gained and after the produce itself had 

 been standardized so as to be identified with well-known grades, 

 could the buying through field men be supplemented by purchases 

 through mailed quotations or through calls by telephone or tele- 

 graph. Even then, however, the use of actual field service 

 continued to be employed in order to secure or hold trade in 

 competition with other agencies in the same line of business. The 

 specialized form of field work where men devote their buying to 

 some single product, as in the case of the modern strawberry man, 

 is a comparatively recent development and is limited to products 

 subject to a high degree of localization and specialization. 



In another respect, too, from the standpoint of the local ship- 

 per, the jobber's avenue of trade presented an important contrast 

 to the older route, that via the commission man. Instead of the 

 assumption of risks incident to consignments on commission, 

 the local shipper naturally preferred the security of actual sales. 

 The result was a gradual displacement of commission business by 

 that of jobbing wherever the latter found conditions for buying 

 suitable. This change took place partly by the entry of new men 

 into the jobbing field, but often by a change in methods of doing 

 business from commission to that of jobbing. 



While a considerable number of produce men who began buy- 

 ing on a commission basis took up jobbing later, it was not 



