MARKETING ONIONS 
35 
almost the entire year. Most of the direct receivers buy at shipping 
points: they also receive on consignment and a small number of them 
maintain their own acreages in the principal producing sections. 
Late onions in 100-pound sacks and early stock in bushel crates 
are generally sold on the piers to the jobbing trade in lots averaging 
10 to 15 packages. On the other hand, jobbers handle in car lots a 
larger proportion of onions than of any other product except water- 
melons. The jobbers sell generally in units of one to five packages 
to the retailers. 
Boston. — Three States supply nearly TO per cent of Boston's 
onions (see figs. 22 and 23). Nearly one-half (45 per cent) came 
from the Connecticut Valley in 1920 and 1921: about 20 per cent 
came from Texas, 9 per cent from California, and 15 per cent was 
imported from other countries. In the fall of 1922. owin<r to the 
ORIGIN OF ONION UNLOADS AT 
NEW YORK AND ST. LOUIS 
Fig. 21. — More than half the car lots received at New York come from three States : 
New York, Ohio, and Massachusetts. Texas stock averages 15 per cent of the 
total car-lot supply at this market. St. Louis unloads about one-eighth as many 
cars as New York, chiefly from the Middle West and Texas 
poor quality of Massachusetts onions, there were large shipments 
from Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, so that for the calendar year 
1922 less than one-third of the receipts were from the Connecticut 
Valley. 
Most of the onions on the Boston market are bought direct from 
the country shippers, although a considerable quantity is handled 
on commission. Imported stock as a rule is bought at Liverpool by 
representatives of the local firms and shipped direct to Boston. In 
case of short supply the dealers may buy in New York. 
Unlike the New York and Philadelphia markets, the sales of car- 
lot receipts do not take place at the immediate point of arrival but 
at the wholesalers' stores, where they have been hauled by wagon or 
truck. 
Boston is the distributing center for imported and western or 
southern grown onions to most of the Xew England towns, but with 
