234 MODERN FRUIT MARKETING 



particularly handle enormous quantities of the various 

 fruit byproducts. The great bulk of the f. o. b. sales 

 made by fruit exchanges go to these jobbing houses. 

 They keep watch of the importations and have their 

 agents constantly at the auctions to keep the warehouses 

 supplied from day to day. 



The commodities they handle are without number, 

 and many of the articles of food consumed daily by the 

 average individual have been prepared for him by the 

 jobbers in ways he is little aware of. Our favorite 

 brands of coffee, supposed to come direct from the grow- 

 ers in the tropics, are usually cleaned, mixed, graded, and 

 roasted in the warehouse of the jobbers in New York and 

 Boston (Fig. 123). The tea from China and Ceylon, im- 

 ported in great unsightly, crude packages, is put into 

 usable and respectable looking packages before being 

 passed along to the consumer. Olives from Spain and 

 Italy are ungraded, unsized and packed in huge hogs- 

 heads when imported. These are put through a rigid 

 grading process. The best olives are stuffed and placed 

 in American made bottles. The rest are sorted to size and 

 color, and put into various packages according to their 

 condition. 



The dates from Africa, the dried currants 2 from 

 Greece, the cocoanuts from South America and spices 

 from the tropics are all put through a cleaning process 

 in the warehouse of the jobbers in this country. Few 

 of the more intelligent of the consuming public would 

 enjoy eating most of this imported fruit if they saw it 

 before the jobbers made it over into presentable form. 

 Most of the dates, figs and currants are washed, disin- 



? Really a grape. 



