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UNITED STA'™^'^^^^^^^^^^'^^^' 



DEPARTMENT of AGR 



DEPARTMENT CIRCULAR 413 



Washington, D. C. Issued April, 1927 



EXTENT AND CAUSES OF REJECTIONS OF BOXED 



APPLES FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON 



SEASONS 1922 TO 1925 



R. R. PAILTHORP 



and 



J. W. PARK 



Marketing Specialists, Division of Fruits and Vegetables, Bureau of Agricultural E>x>noinics 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Introduction 1 



Methods of sale 1 



Reductions in price caused by rejections 2 



Comparison of price reductions on allowances 



and resales 4 



Cars rejected and resold at the original f. o. b. 



price or more 5 



Page 



Disposition of rejected cars 6 



Reasons for rejections and allowances 6 



Relation of number of allowances and rejec- 

 tions to price 8 



Purchase on Government certificates 11 



Obtaining proper confirmation of sale 12 



Summary 14 



INTRODUCTION 



One of the outstanding problems of the fruit and vegetable industry 

 concerns the rejection of shipments purchased at point of origin 

 by buyers in distant city markets. This circular deals with rejec- 

 tions of boxed-apple shipments from the State of Washington during 

 the three shipping seasons 1922-23, 1923-24, and 1924-25. _ 



Phases of the problem which were given attention in this study 

 include methods of sale of boxed apples, extent of rejections, amount 

 of price reductions, disposition of cars which were rejected and resold 

 by the shipper, reasons given by buyers for rejecting shipments or 

 requesting allowances, relation of rejections to price changes, pur- 

 chases on Government certificates, and confirmation of sales. 



The number of sellers who cooperated in supplying records was 

 15 for the year 1922-23, 12 for 1923-24, and 13 for 1924-25. The 

 number of cars handled by these firms and considered in this study 

 represented 38.1 per cent of the car-lot shipments for the State in 

 1922-23, 46.4 per cent in 1923-24, and 43.8 per cent in 1924-25. 

 Of the 15 sellers who cooperated in 1922-23, 9 were local dealers, 3 

 were private sales agencies, and 3 were cooperative associations. 

 Of the 12 who cooperated in 1923-24, 5 were local dealers, 4 were 

 private sales agencies, and 3 were cooperative associations; and for 

 1924-25, 6 were local dealers, 4 were private sales agencies, and 3 

 were cooperative associations. 



METHODS OF SALE 



A tabulation of the methods of sale of Washington apples for the 

 three years indicates that on the average 81.5 per cent of the car-lot 



37493°— 27 1 



