Handling, Distributing, and Sale of Fruit 201 



delivery on special orders, through auction companies, 

 or in any other way. As a rule, these corporations are 

 not supposed to buy and sell the products which they 

 handle as agents for their clients, though in practice many 

 of them do act as buyers and commission merchants as 

 well. These corporations charge from five to ten per cent 

 on the gross sales. 



The Jobber. A jobber is a wholesale fruit dealer. He 

 buys the fruit from the producer, from a dealer, or through 

 a broker and sells it to the retail trade. In a given trans- 

 action one jobber may intervene between the producer 

 and the retailer, or there may be two or more of this class 

 of middlemen, including the traveling solicitor, the local 

 jobber, or the local merchant who may act as a broker or a 

 jobber and through whom the city jobber may purchase 

 his supplies. A jobber may be a commission merchant 

 also, many of the jobbers in the cities acting in both 

 capacities. 



The Commission Merchant. A commission merchant 

 is an agent who sells fruit for the owner direct to the stores, 

 venders, peddlers, hotels, and other retail establishments ; 

 occasionally he may sell through an auction company. 

 He sells the fruit in original packages in the quantities 

 desired by the trade. He receives it on consignment and 

 charges the owner, who may be a producer or a local 

 dealer, a commission varying from five to ten per cent on 

 the gross sale of the consignment, though the commission 

 varies with different commodities and in different markets. 

 A commission merchant, strictly as such, does not buy or 

 sell on his own account, though in practice there are few 

 commission merchants in the United States who are not 



