MARKETING ONIONS 43 
Bureau of the Census) has been compiled by the Department of 
Agriculture since 1917. These unloads include only mature early 
and late stock, and take no account of bunch onions. 
Taking the figures as given in Table 6. about 6,300.000 bushels are 
unloaded annually in city market districts with a total population 
of 21,700,000 people, or about 15 pounds of onions for every man, 
woman, and child. 
Although these cities contain less than 40 per cent of the whole 
urban population, the unloads reported are equal to more than half 
of all the onions shipped to market in carload lots. Most of the cities 
in question reship some of their onions in less than carload lots to 
other cities and towns and supplement their unloads by supplies 
of home-grown onions, locally estimated at 5 to 30 per cent of the 
total supply. 
The indicated populations do not represent the total consumers 
of the cities in question : but, on the whole and for purposes of com- 
parison, they may be considered fairly inclusive, since the receipts 
of home-grown onions to some extent balance those that are shipped 
out in less than carload lots. Pittsburgh and Kansas City are great 
distributing centers for partial carloads, and Xew York sends out 
many truck loads to urban towns and cities within a 50-mile radius. 
The importance of Boston, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City as distri- 
bution points is shown by their very high per capita receipts. 
Taking the population figures as given in Table 6, Boston is the 
city of greatest proportionate onion consumption. It uses about 25 
pounds per capita, as compared with 14 pounds for Xew York City. 
In 1920, 1921, and 1922 the total unloads were greater than for any 
city except Xew York, but the per capita difference is partly owing 
to numerous shipments in small lots. 
St. Paul and Minneapolis have the smallest car-lot consumption, 
due, in part at least, to the large number of home-grown onions 
marketed. Chicago also has a low apparent consumption. 
These great cities seem to take about the same quantity year after 
vear, no matter what the price of onions or the prosperity of the 
people. This is indicated in Table 7, which shows the average num- 
ber of cars unloaded annually, the yearly total, and the yearly varia- 
tions from the average. Deviation from the five-year average un- 
loads for 11 cities ranged from 0.6 per cent in 1921 to 12 per cent 
in 1922. 
The small variation from the average demand is striking. In 
three years out of five the unloads reported at 11 principal cities 
varied not more than 2V2 per cent. Of course, the unloads in indi- 
vidual cities varied greatly from year to year, much more than the 
totals, but probably no vegetable crop shows greater uniformity in 
volume of receipts at the principal markets. 
Since 1918 the figures indicate a fairly consistent increase in the 
number of cars unloaded in these markets, although the production 
of onions and the shipments from country points show no such 
tendency. The more complete and accurate reports of the later 
years may partly account for the differences shown. 
The shipment figures tell a very different story. Shipments fluctu- 
ate with the volume of the crop*. Table 7 shows an extreme varia- 
