THE FRUIT MARKET 25 



It is better to sacrifice a liberal patron than to allow 

 collections to get badly behind. The importance of 

 this matter is proved by the experience of hundreds 

 and hundreds of marketmen everj'where. 



VII. PRODUCTION AND PRICE 



Over-production is a word which has often been 

 conjured w4th in the discussion of agricultural topics. 

 It seems usually to have served for the confusion of 

 the hearer and usually for the equal confusion of the 

 speaker. Over-production is commonly used to mean 

 two widely different things. In some cases it is in- 

 tended to mean the production of more fruit or grain 

 than can be consumed; in other cases it means merely 

 the offer of more fruit or grain than the market will 

 accept at the price asked. 



In the former sense there is no such thing as over- 

 production of fruit, and probably not of any agricul- 

 tural crop. It is said that there can be no over-pro- 

 duction of wheat w^hile thousands of people are hungry 

 and starving. There are always plenty of people 

 hungry for strawberries, even when the market is most 

 hopelessly glutted. There is, absolutely speaking, no 

 over-production ; there is simply an over-supply. 



The term over-supply ought to be substituted for 

 over-production in almost all discu.ssions, since over- 

 supply is the thing usually discussed. The problem of 

 over-production will never worry a fruit grower, but 

 over-supply is one of his greatest dangers. 



Over-supply is merely one of the extremes in the 

 ever-fluctuating ratio of supply and demand. It 

 should be considered, therefore, as incidental to the 



