30 BULLETIN 1416, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
agencies. There is also considerable shipping on consignment by 
boat to commission firms in Chicago, Milwaukee, and other markets. 
A number of city dealers have local agents who solicit shipments to 
be sold on commission or who buy outright when occasion requires. 
Fruit bought the night before reaches the Chicago market next 
morning and conditions in that city strongly influence the Michigan 
country markets. Local dealers and local associations of growers sell 
much of the stock obtained from growers to city receivers usually in 
carloads f. 0. b., or on a similar basis. Much stock is marketed by 
motor trucks which travel to Chicago, Grand Rapids, Detroit, and 
to many less distant points. | 
Local packing and storage by dealers is less a feature than in some 
other eastern apple regions and a large proportion of the rather 
variable growers’ pack goes direct to the consuming markets. The 
associations grade, pack in barrels or baskets, and store many apples 
and sell them from time to time throughout the season. Usually 
from 200 to 300 cars of cull apples are shipped in bulk to cider mills. 
Considerable market stock also is shipped im bulk, orchard run. 
All sales in bulk are usually on the 100-pound basis. The cannery 
output is important. In general, there are about the same methods 
with local and seasonal variations in apple marketing as observed in 
the western New York region. 
EARLY REGIONS 
In the early apple sections of southern [lhnois, eastern New York, 
New England, and the Southern States, commission sales are in the 
majority. The perishable nature of the product compels almost 
daily shipments, often in less than car lots. Growers sometimes unite 
to ship in car lots or they ship mixed carloads. Since many of the 
early orchards are near markets, an increasing proportion of the early 
crop is trucked to the nearest cities. Crops from some of the larger 
orchards remote from market are sold on car-lot f. o. b. basis. Coop- 
— S| 
erative associations handle many early apples in New Jersey, New — 
York, and- southern Illinois, but the association usually operates 
through its brokers or commission dealers. 
COOPERATIVE MARKETING 
Eastern apple organizations do not handle as large a percentage 
of the crop as do the boxed-apple cooperatives in the Northwest, but 
nevertheless they do considerable business. Reports received by the 
United States Department of Agriculture from 42 cooperative 
associations and federations that handle barreled apples indicate that 
in 1922, the last season for which comprehensive returns are available, 
they shipped 4,798 cars of apples with a shipping-point value of 
$3,115,068. These cooperative shipments were about 7 per cent of 
the total shipments from the barreled-apple region in the 1922-23 
season. 
Nearly all of the associations have been organized since 1912, and 
half of them since 1917. Nine of them are large federations having 
together 248 local branches and membership exceeding 24,000. A 
few leading federations made more than half of the cooperative sales. 
Usually they have a contract with their members giving the associa- 
tion control of the crop for several years. They sell through a sales © 
Riper ans 
