ARE EGGS Priced Correctly 



on the Boston Market? 



By ALFRED A. BROWN' 



AS MOST POULTRY MEN 

 know, the Boston Herald 

 "quotation" is the peg on which 

 much of the industry hangs its hat. 

 The methods used in developing this 

 basic figure on the so-called Boston 

 Wholesale Market, or more appro- 

 priately for New England, have not 

 kept pace with the changes that 

 have taken place in marketing. Ex- 

 cept for a change in arrangements 

 in 1938, the methods have gone 

 through no significant change dur- 

 ing the past 25 years, a period in 

 which the entire distributing system 

 has been transformed. The place of 

 the Herald as a particularly im- 

 portant factor in price-making dates 

 from 1938. At that time the Boston 

 Fruit and Produce Exchange de- 

 cided to discontinue the activities 

 of its Egg-Pricing Committee. After 

 a short period in which reporting 

 was on a temporary basis, the ar- 

 rangements now in effect were 

 evolved. 



Price Established by Herald 



Formerly, the Herald reporter 

 covering the markets stopped by the 

 Exchange rooms daily for a copy of 

 the Produce Report. Today he con- 

 tacts the trade directly and provides 

 the Exchange with a report on the 

 egg market. Fhe Exchange ])rovides 

 him with desk space and telephone 

 facilities. The information so de- 

 veloped appears in the daily "Prod- 



Research Professor, Agricultural Economi 

 Farm Management 



and 



uce Report" of the Boston Fruit 

 and Produce Exchange under the 

 caption : 



"BOS rON EGGS TODAY" 

 The Boston Herald reports :- 

 Sales: Brown, Specials, Large 

 200 Cases, 56c 



The Boston Fruit and Produce 

 Exchange makes this information 

 available to the trade, to other 

 Boston newspaper reporters who 

 may call in, and to other markets. 

 The Exchange Report also includes 

 data on egg receipts and storage 

 holdings in Boston as well as sim- 

 ilar information for New York and 

 Chicago. For this additional cover- 

 age, the Herald depends, as the 

 others do, on the Exchange which 

 in turn relies on the Market News 

 Service of the U.S.D.A. and teletype 

 reports from the New York and 

 Chicago Exchanges. 



U. S. D. A. Also Reports 



The Market News Service of the 

 U. S. D. A. also issues a daily re- 

 port on egg prices. The information 

 available to the Market News Serv- 

 ice, however, is the product of a 

 system operating on the Exchange 

 or Herald price. The chief difficulty 

 in present egg-pricing arrangements 

 is the limited amount of wholesale 

 trading available for reporting. 



The altered status of the so-called 

 Boston Wholesale Market is due to 

 a number of sinmltaneous develop- 

 ments which are familiar to most 

 poultrymen, egg-handlers, and 

 others acquainted with the industry. 



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