230 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



or charging a npecitied sum for the storing of certain articles. 

 The rapid increase in the number of cold-storage depots in 

 all the cities of Ne^Y England would seem to indicate that 

 the investments are profitable ones, and at the same time 

 dealers in farm produce have found the practice of storing 

 goods a paying one. These owners and lessees of cold- 

 storage rooms and buildings take advantage of the markets, 

 bujang when the supply exceeds the demand, and selling 

 when the demand is greater than the supply. Traders and 

 merchants have seen their opportunity in cold-storage, and 

 have made fortunes ; for the cost of holding stocks in cold- 

 storage is slight, and the advances in the prices of farm com- 

 modities are oftentimes quick and comparatively large. 



Take the matter of butter alone : there were held in cold- 

 storage in the single city of Boston, on December 19 last, 

 a total of 103,000 tubs. Allowing that the average weight 

 of these tubs was 20 pounds, makes a total of 2,060,000 

 pounds of butter. A presumably fair estimate of the price 

 at which this butter was bought in the months of June, July 

 and August is 14 cents. It is also fair to presume that 2 

 cents a pound paid all costs of cold-storage, as the charges 

 are rarely one-third of a cent a month per pound. But, to 

 make the charge high enough, let it l)e called 3 cents, and 

 there would be a total cost of the butter on December 19 of 

 17 cents a pound. Now, the strictly wholesale price of 

 butter in the Boston market, on this same 19th of December, 

 was 21 cents, and it was off a cent and a half from the week 

 previous. This gain of 4 cents per pound on 2,060,000 

 pounds makes a total of $82,400. But none of this gain 

 went to the farmers of New England, who made this butter 

 and sold it at a figure that hardly gave them a new dollar for 

 an old one. Again, this total of 103,000 tubs in cold-storage 

 December 19 in the city of Boston alone did not represent 

 the entire amount that had l)een stored during the preceding 

 season, for in the week preceding the stock had been reduced 

 by 11,400 tubs. It is prol)ably safe to say that the net gain 

 in the value of butter placed in Boston cold-storage houses 

 equals, if it does not exceed, $100,000, — a sum which, if 

 divided among the New England dairy farms, would help at 

 least to pay the taxes upon them. 



