Handling, Distributing, and Sale of Fruit 203 



dling shippers' accounts. Under these conditions members 

 of the trade who are not stockholders or shippers who have 

 agents not represented by the stockholders may not be 

 able to buy or sell through the auction, because the sale 

 of the fruit may be manipulated to protect the stockholders 

 and to discriminate against their competitors. In one of 

 the eastern-cities all of the members of the wholesale fruit 

 trade are stockholders in an auction company and agree 

 among themselves not to buy except through auction sales. 

 This arbitrary attempt to restrict the sale of fruit has 

 resulted in keeping the better grades of fruit out of this 

 market. It has also resulted in the recent indictment of 

 the members on the ground that the combination acts 

 in restraint of trade. An auction company in a small 

 market usually results in an artificial condition of trade 

 because the stockholders, who are the trade itself, can 

 manipulate the condition of the sales in such a way as to 

 give them an extra profit. 



The Warehouseman. The warehouseman acts as a 

 trustee in storing products for his clients until they are 

 sold. He is a part of the system of distribution of the 

 food supplies of the nation, the warehouses serving as 

 reservoirs in equalizing the supplies throughout the year. 

 The producer, the jobber, the commission merchant, or 

 any one else who wishes to store his product to be sold at 

 a later date, contracts with the warehouseman for space in 

 which the goods are stored. The warehouseman is in a 

 position to know about the food supplies of a city and of 

 the amount held by different people who have goods in 

 his warehouse. He is supposed to treat everybody alike 

 in so far as his relations to the public are concerned., and he 



