6 MISC. PUBLICATION 604, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
a dispute arose between buyer and seller, there was no basis for settlement. 
Claims against transportation companies amounting to millions of dollars were 
difficult to settle because it was almost impossible to establish the value of 
a product. 
Without standards there was no intelligible basis on which prices of produce 
could be compared. Even though a shipper was able to obtain price quotations 
for a product on different markets, these prices meant little because he had no 
way of knowing the quality on which they were based. He would always be 
in doubt as to whether a variation in price at different markets meant a varia- 
tion in quality, or whether the price quoted was lower on one market than on 
another for the same quality of produce. 
Lack of standards was a handicap to growers belonging to cooperative market- 
ing associations because there was no practical basis for pooling their products. 
Without standards a basis was also lacking for the safe and successful use of 
credit. 
Such were some of the problems that confronted the fruit and vegetable in- 
dustry at the turn of the century, when the volume of produce being shipped 
was increasing by leaps and bounds. 
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT STANDARDIZATION 
Growers were really responsible for the first efforts to ease a bad situation 
and they took the first step in an attempt to establish a measure of commercial 
standardization by marking containers with their names. Many were success- 
ful in building up a personal reputation by packing a high-quality product or 
by honesty of pack. Growers names and addresses are not so helpful to them 
now in selling produce as they were originally because the Federal Food, Drug, 
and Cosmetic Act, and most of the State standardization laws or rules and 
regulations established thereunder require that all containers be marked with 
the name and address of the packer or distributor. 
The next step in the evolution of standardization was grading on the markets 
by commission men. Much of the produce coming into the markets was of 
poor quality and failed to meet the demands of the retail trade; but rather 
than criticize the producer whose business he wished to keep, the commission 
man did his own sorting and repacking. This grading in the city markets 
reached considerable proportions before the more definite State and Federal 
standards were established. Another common practice was for city dealers 
to send their representative to country shipping points in order to purchase and 
supervise the grading and packing of products demanded by their trade. 
Another development in standardization was the use of trade-marks and 
brands by some of the larger shippers’ and producers’ organizations. This 
development immediately preceded the use of definite, established standards 
and was in reality a primitive system of grading. The shipper who adopted 
a trade-mark or brand usually tried to have his fruits and vegetables meet 
certain standards or at least he did not allow the more defective products to 
get into the pack. Use of brands did not prove very successful, however, as 
dealers in the markets used them in competitive advertising and there was a 
general tendency to make the buyer think that the brands which a dealer 
handled were superior to the corresponding brands of his competitor. Brands 
and trade-marks are used extensively today but their use is often coupled with 
definite official standards. 
Such were the first meager attempts by individuals and commercial firms to 
solve some of the knotty problems which confronted the fruit and vegetable 
