MARKETING OF BERMUDA ONIONS 53 
marketed within a space of five weeks. Shipments usually come 
quickly to a peak, decline slightly on account of rains and a change in 
producing areas, advance to a second peak and then quickly decline, 
although a few straggling cars continue to be shipped for several 
weeks. 
Bermudas are distributed in carlot quantities throughout the 
United States, Canada, and Cuba. Eighty per cent are sent to the 
26 per cent of the population in cities of 100,000 or over. One-third 
of the cities with a population of 25,000 or over in the United States 
do not receive so much as 1 car of Bermudas a year, and 20 per cent 
have not received a car for eight years. 
The grower markets his onions in one of the following ways: (1) 
Sale through a dealer who has financed the grower; (2) by contracts 
prior to harvest; (3) for cash at shipping point; (4) through an agent 
on consignment; (5) through a cooperative association; (6) direct 
through wholesale dealers in consuming centers. 
There is much difference of opinion as to the relative merits of 
selling at shipping point or at destination. The sale at point of desti- 
nation has generally been the more profitable for the grower at the 
beginning of the season and least profitable near the close of the 
season. The dealer who buys at shipping point and ships to con- 
suming centers performs certain valuable services for the grower. 
For these services, including all costs except transportation, he has 
received an average of 13 cents a crate the past seven years, as com- 
pared with 23 cents for transportation and 64 cents for the producer. 
Aside from the question of the relative worth of his services and of 
the margin he receives, the greatest weakness of the system from the 
grower's standpoint is that such buyers are likely to be on hand when 
conditions are favorable, but either receive shipments only on con- 
signment or leave the section entirely when marketing conditions 
are most unfavorable, with the result that the grower is without the 
buyer's services when he needs marketing facilities the most. 
Bermuda onion prices are characterized by wide fluctuation both 
within each season and as between one season and another. This 
extreme variation, coupled with very high costs of production, renders 
the growing of Bermuda onions unusually speculative. 
Four groups of factors affect Bermuda onion prices: (1) Physical 
factors inherent in the given lot of Bermudas; (2) factors primarily 
determining the variations between seasons; (3) those factors influ- 
encing price fluctuations within a given season; and (4) those factors 
influencing prices principally at a given point. These groups may be 
severally subdivided into five or six factors, each of which may have 
an important effect at particular times. Probably the most impor- 
tant are the variety, quality, and condition of the stock, the amount 
of carry over of old onions, the prices at which these onions are selling 
when the season opens, the steadiness and volume of shipments of 
new stock during the season, and the period in the season. 
So close a correlation exists between the quantity of old onions in 
storage February 1 and the opening price of Bermuda onions, that 
it is possible to predict approximately the prices for Bermudas two 
months before the season opens. The quantity of old onions in 
storage exerts an influence on the opening and seasonal prices of the 
new slock out of proportion to the relative size of the old-stock carry 
over and the new crop of Bermudas. 
