MARKETING OF BERMUDA ONIONS 
41 
of other factors beyond the scope of this bulletin influence the price 
of old onions to such an extent that the correlation is not by any 
means perfect. (See Table 6.) In the spring new onions are pre- 
ferred to old unless the price of the new is greatly out of line. For 
this reason, the price of new onions will follow fairly closely the price 
old onions brought the week before the opening of the Bermuda 
season, and this correlation gives an additional means of forecasting 
the opening prices for Bermudas. The price for the past eight 
years, predicted in this way, is shown in Figure 14. 
OPENING PRICES OF BERMUDA ONIONS AT SHIPPING POINT COMPARED WITH 
PRICE PREDICTED FROM PREVIOUS WEEK'S PRICE OF OLD STOCK IN CONSUM- 
ING CENTERS 
DOLLARS 
PER CRATE 
/ 
\. Predicti 
\ 1 
?d Price 
/ 
/ 
/y 
it 
\ 
A 
f 
/ 
i/ 
/ <£ 
c* 
\\ 
it 
it 
it 
it 
> 
f Actual 7 
\\ 
°rice >\ 
/'' 
it 
(fusjl 
1916 
I9f7 
1918 
1919 
1920 
1921 
1922 
1923 
Fig. 14.— A fair indication of the probable opening price that will be paid for Bermudas at shipping point 
can be obtained from the price at which old onions are being sold in the terminal markets the week pre- 
ceding the opening of the Bermuda season. The predicted price shown is based on the assumption 
that each change of $1 in the price paid per 100-pound sack for old stock is correlated with a like change 
of 27 cents in the opening price of new stock 
ESTIMATED SIZE OF NEW CROP OF BERMUDAS 
The size of the new crop is dependent upon the acreage planted 
and yield per acre. These two factors and the causes behind changes 
in them have been analyzed in a preceding section. 
The size of the new crop does not seem to have affected opening 
prices to so large an extent as generally supposed. In fact, the influ- 
ence of the estimated new crop is comparatively small and is out- 
weighed by other factors. In 1917, though prices were high because 
of the small carry over of old onions, the unusually large quantity of 
new onions may have prevented the prices from rising still higher. 
But as a general rule, large or small quantities of new onions affect 
prices in a somewhat different fashion. The total available supply of 
old onions seems to operate to raise or lower the early prices of Ber- 
mudas, but with the new onions, only the visible supply, that is, the 
quantity already shipped, seems to affect prices much during the first 
part of the season. Once the season is under way, however, the effect 
of shipments of new stock is a very important factor. 
