OUTLETS AND METHODS OP SALE FOR SHIPPEES. 13 



and the average producer will have to utilize some of the present 

 machinery. There is much misunderstanding and confusion in the 

 use of the terms which designate the different middlemen. In this 

 bulletin an attempt is made to employ these terms according to their 

 most common usage, in order to have definite expressions with 

 which to work. 



The middlemen to or through whom growers can sell direct may 

 be enumerated as follows: Country merchants, country collecting 

 agents, country buyers of special products, traveling buyers, private 

 exchanges, operators, brokers, commission men, auctions, and retailers. 



SALES TO COUNTRY MERCHANTS. 



The primary advantage of dealing with a country merchant is 

 that the farmer can trade with him in person and is more apt to 

 know the financial and moral responsibility of the man to whom he 

 is selling. The country merchant usually will purchase poultry and 

 poultry products, farm butter, wool, hides, or commodities produced 

 on the farm in quantities not sufficiently large to constitute commer- 

 cial shipments. The farmer is paid for the produce either in cash 

 or with credit at the local store. Provided his purchases are large 

 enough, the country merchant combines them into car lots and sells 

 direct to the city trade, or disposes of them to a car-lot assembler at 

 some neighboring shipping point, who concentrates these small 

 shipments into car-lot quantities, selling to the city trade on his own 

 account; also the country merchant may ship small lots of produce 

 directly to commission houses. 



COUNTRY COLLECTING AGENTS. 



Country collecting agents, on the other hand, are the country 

 dealers or buyers who go directly to the farm with their wagons, 

 buying or trading for small quantities of eggs, butter, poultry, hogs, 

 calves, and other farm products which they concentrate into carloads 

 and ship to receivers in the city. They pay cash for the goods at the 

 farm. These country collecting agents include the so-called "car-lot 

 mblers." 



LOCAL COUNTRY BUYERS OP SPECIAL PRODUCTS. 



Country buyers operate, as a rule, in districts producing largo 

 quantities of such specialized commodities as apples, peaches, and 

 citrus fruits. They buy from the producers in car lots and ship to 

 the besl available markets, selling on orders or through the usual 

 markel channels for whatever margin they can secure. They pay 

 in fash at the shipping point al the time of sale or delivery. This 

 method of sale; is common for tomatoes and cantaloupes in Florida, 

 potatoes in Maine, watermelons in Texas, peaches in Georgia and 

 Michigan, and apples in the Eastern Slates. 



