210 Cooperation in Agriculture 



twelve boxes ; other products are treated in a similar 

 manner. The producer receives returns on the number 

 of boxes originally shipped, the excess due to the repack- 

 ing going to the merchant. The merchant often justifies 

 the practice on the ground that he has been forced by busi- 

 ness competition into methods that he himself condemns. 

 It is not an uncommon practice for the commission mer- 

 chants in some cities to repack peaches from one-fifth 

 Climax baskets into one-sixth Climax baskets. Formerly 

 when the peck basket was the standard size, the commis- 

 sion merchants repacked the peaches in baskets holding 

 a fifth of a bushel. This practice finally led the Michigan 

 peach-growers to adopt the fifth bushel as the standard 

 size. The merchants then reduced the size into which 

 the fruit was repacked to a sixth of a bushel. The result 

 of these practices is that the producer pays proportionally 

 more for the small empty package, it costs more for pack- 

 ing, handling, and for freight, while the relative value 

 of the fruit remains as it was before. 



A difficulty that frequently affects the shippers' interest 

 is the absence of free, open competition in some of the 

 auction markets. When every buyer and shipper has 

 equal rights in the auction, this system of crop sale may be 

 an advantage both to the shipper and to the buyer of 

 fruit in the large cities. But all auction sales in the United 

 States are not handled in this manner, especially in the 

 smaller markets. Instead of operating as semi-public 

 agents for all shippers and buyers, some of these com- 

 panies are formed by the trade for the purpose of con- 

 trolling the sale of fruit in one or more cities in the 

 interest of the buyers who are the stockholders, or in 



