Handling, Distributing, and Sale of Fruit 199 



Agencies of Distribution 



The fruit crop is distributed from the producer to the 

 consumer by brokers, jobbers, fruit-distributing and mar- 

 keting corporations, soliciting agents, local buyers, com- 

 mission merchants, and retail traders such as venders, 

 fruit stands, market places, and retail stores. The dis- 

 tributing facilities also include the transportation lines 

 over which the produce is shipped, the auction houses 

 through which the fruit may be sold to the jobber and to 

 the retail trade, the market places, and the warehouses 

 which may be used as assembling points and centers of 

 distribution. There is a wide variation in the number of 

 steps through which the fruit crop has to pass in its journey 

 from the producer to the consumer. Occasionally the 

 producer delivers it direct to the consumer. In some lo- 

 calities, like Philadelphia, it may be sold through a public 

 retail market where the consumer buys direct from the 

 farmer as well as from the dealer. The system grows more 

 complex and the expenses of marketing increase when the 

 commission merchant, the jobber, the local and traveling 

 buyers, and salesmen, general merchants, and exporters 

 are added to the scheme of distribution and marketing. 

 It becomes bewildering to the average person when he 

 finds that there are no hard-and-fast lines which separate 

 any of these agencies from another and that their func- 

 tions overlap or may be identical. Perhaps the scheme 

 of fruit distribution and marketing may be made more 

 clear by a brief description of the several agencies. 



The Broker. The broker is an agent who acts between 

 the owner of the fruit and the jobber in placing it with 



