RELATION OF JOBBERS AND COMMISSION MEN 

 TO THE HANDLING OF PRODUCE 



By C. W. Thompson, Investigator, Rural Organization Service, 

 United States Department of Agriculture 



(Reprinted from The Annals of the American Academy of Political and 

 Social Science, November, 191 3) 



SO LONG as each locality produces its own food supply, the 

 problem of distribution is very simple. Either there is no 

 distribution at all, viz. each consumer produces his own supply, or 

 there is direct sale by producer to consumer as in the old-time 

 fairs, or there is at most a local merchant who acts as an inter- 

 mediary. A jobber or commission man does not fit into such 

 a simple local economy, and this explains the absence of such 

 middlemen until about the beginning of the eighteenth century. 



It is only as economic changes tend to broaden markets be- 

 yond the producing localities that the need for a larger distributive 

 machinery arises. Such a widening of the market along geo- 

 graphical lines was a characteristic change during the eighteenth 

 and nineteenth centuries, mainly as a result of improvements in 

 canal and railway transportation. A still further widening of the 

 market has taken place during the last three or four decades, 

 mainly as a result of improved means of refrigeration, but the 

 latter extension of the market has been one of time rather than 

 of space. 



That the widening of markets, made possible through improved 

 transportation and refrigeration, is desirable will scarcely be ques- 

 tioned by those who are conversant with the limitations and instabil- 

 ity of conditions under the early local economy as contrasted with 

 the variety in supply and the greater stability in prices of the larger 

 markets. The form of distributive machinery that is best adapted 

 to the needs of the enlarged markets is, however, not so clear. 



769 



