MARKETING OF BERMUDA ONIONS 29 
The cash buyer or speculator who buys onions f. o. b. shipping 
point and then sells to connections in consuming centers, performs a 
definite service for the grower. He pays the grower immediate cash 
and finds the market. He assumes the speculative risk of market 
fluctuations and losses of any kind after the onions leave the sellers' 
switch. He pays the transportation costs out of the difference be- 
tween the price at shipping point and at destination, and out of the 
balance he pays all selling costs, telegraphic tolls, salaries of office 
force, and maintenance of his office. In some cases he performs all 
of these services and receives no remuneration, as, for example, in 
1920. But, obviously, on the whole, he must receive enough to pay 
all costs of performing these services and some profit or he could not 
remain in business. For this 6-year period the shipper received an 
average of 43 cents a crate, out of which he paid all marketing ex- 
penses from shipping point to wholesale dealer (except transportation) 
and assumed the risks of market fluctuation, spoilage or loss en route, 
and failure of wholesale dealer to keep his contract. 
A disadvantage of the cash-buyer system is that the buyer is willing 
to pay cash only when conditions are favorable and when the grower 
can readily find another outlet for his onions. When conditions are 
unfavorable, as in 1921, or in the latter half of 1918, the cash buyer 
is likely to stop buying and to receive onions only on consignment or 
not at all. Individual dealers can not be blamed for refusing to buy 
produce when they are likely to lose thereby, because they are in the 
business to make a profit. But from the grower's standpoint a sys- 
tem is hardly satisfactory that gives him a ready market only when 
conditions are bright and he has alternative methods of sale. When 
marketing conditions are bad, the grower is most in need of help, and 
a method of selling which fails at that time accentuates the evil. 
What is needed is some agency that will make an unusual effort to 
stimulate consumption at such times. 
The individual grower will find it profitable to sell to the local buyer 
sometimes and at other times to sell in one of the ways that permit 
him to secure the benefit of the delivered price. In 1922, and late in 
the season in several other years, the grower who sold to the local 
buyer had the best of it. But in the long run the buyer who special- 
izes in the marketing of a crop is likely to be a much better bargainer 
than the grower who specializes in its production. From the growers' 
standpoint, as a group, the relative advantage of the shipping-point 
sale, as compared with any method whereby the delivered price is 
secured will depend (1) upon whether the marketing work will be 
done as well as the buyer does it or as cheaply as the average mar- 
gin of the buyer amounts to, and (2) whether the alternative agency 
will take care of the crop more dependably than the buyer has 
done in the seasons when unfavorable market conditions prevail. 
BERMUDA ONION PRICES FROM 1916 TO 1923 
Wide fluctuation is the outstanding characteristic of domestic 
Bermuda onion prices. Jobbing prices at six large markets fell from 
nearly $6 a crate to slightly over $1 in eight weeks in 1920 with similar 
declines in 1917 and 1922. The difference between average prices in 
different seasons is almost as striking as the fluctuations within 
each season (fig. 8). Average jobbing prices in 1919 were almost 
