products have been extended. Such fresh vegetables as head lettuce, celery, 
snap beans, cauliflower, broccoli, green peas, carrots, and peppers, are obtainable 
in the markets of the larger cities almost the year-round. In winter the depart 
ment of perishables of any grocery store has probably become just as important 
as any of its nonperishable departments. 
ABUSES BROUGHT ABOUT BY LONG-DISTANCE DEALING 
As was to be expected, the changes brought about by the rapid shift 
from more or less local dealing to long-distance dealing in fruits and vegetables 
created many new problems. The late Wells A. Sherman, who for many years 
administered the fruit and vegetable standardization and inspection work of 
the United States Department of Agriculture, describes the situation as follows 
in his book Merchandising Fresh Fruits and Vegetables: 
The worst abuses which the produce business has ever known grew rapidly and naturally 
out of the conditions brought about by the universal ice supply and the refrigerator car. 
The wholesale handler of perishables in the city, whether he was a commission man or 
buyer, was no longer in personal touch with the grower. The distant grower seldom if ever 
visited the market and usually knew nothing of market prices or of the condition of his 
goods on arrival except what the receiver chose to tell him. 
The inevitable happened. There was ‘“‘easy money” for the unscrupulous man who could 
get goods sent to him on commission from afar. The industry became infested with a 
class of parasites who preyed upon the shipper and interfered with the business of the legitimate 
trader. ... The abuses were not all on the city end. The distant shipper was often a 
plunger. He, too, was after “easy money.” He had no reputation to maintain in the 
far-away market. He was often guilty of false packing. He frequently made little effort 
to exclude the stuff which should not have been shipped. If he had an opportunity to sell 
outright, his products were always represented as of the best. The city merchant who was 
unwilling to share the opprobrium which attached so generally to the commission business 
and who was willing to buy f. o. b. shipping point, found that he must reserve the privilege 
of rejection on arrival if the goods did not prove upon inspection to be of the kind 
and quality specified. : 
Thus, “f. o. b., usual terms” came to mean that the buyer took the goods after loading 
on cars at shipping point at an agreed price, but payment was deferred until the goods 
reached destination and had been inspected by the buyer. Around this method of sale 
other abuses have developed which are now in process of abatement. 
Such a state of affairs as Mr. Sherman describes could not be prevented 
during the early part of the present century when there were no standards by 
which the value of produce could be measured. Abuses by tradesmen, how- 
ever, were not all the handicaps that had to be endured because of this lack of 
common language. Without standards to measure gradations of quality, an 
equitable basis was lacking upon which to make future contracts. Descrip- 
tions could be made, but they were a poor substitute for definite standards. If 
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 
variation in quality, or whether the price quoted was lower on one market 
than on another for the same quality of produce. 
1 SHERMAN, W. A. MERCHANDISING FRESH FRUITS AND VEGETABLES; A NEW BILLION DOLLAR 
INDUSTRY. 499 pp. 1928. (See pp. 37-38, 39.) 
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