16 BULLETIN 1362, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
selling activities. A number of auctioneers are members of the 
auction companies ; in some instances they are part owners. 
CLERKS 
The auctioneer is accompanied by two or more clerks throughout 
the sale and all transactions are recorded as rapidly as made. As 
soon as a sales sheet is filled it is dispatched promptly to the office, 
where it is checked immediately and sent to the delivery clerk. 
Purchases usually are billed to the buyers the same day and always 
within 48 hours after the sale. 
THE BUYERS 
Fruit and produce auction sales are open to the public and any 
bivyer may bid who has complied with the requirements of the 
auction compan}' or is ready to meet the conditions under which 
the sale is conducted. The classes of buyers who frequent auction 
sales are enumerated below, but each market and each company 
< presents individual characteristics as to proportionate amounts of 
business transacted with each class. The following figures furnished 
by a prominent New York auction company represents a close esti- 
mate of the volume of business done by the auctions with the various 
elements of the trade in that city: Jobbers, 50 per cent; buying 
brokers, 20 per cent ; peddlers and pushcart men, 15 per cent ; chain 
stores, 10 per cent ; and fancy fruiterers, 5 per cent. 
Wholesale grocers do practically no buying of fruits and vegetables 
at auction in New York. Hotels and restaurants and retail grocers 
generally use the buying broker. 
The -percentages given are not the same with all commodities. For 
example, the peddler class in New York City takes about 20 per cent 
of the California deciduous fruit and the fancy-fruit stores handle 
about 20 per cent of the lemons. Prior to the establishment of the 
present quarantine against grapes from Spain, the fancy-fruit stores 
also took about 20 per cent of the Almeria grapes sold at auction 
there. 
A western company furnished the following figures covering its 
sales in a recent year: Jobbers and commission men, 78 per cent; 
peddlers, 14 per cent ; and motor-truck operators, 8 per cent. 
Numerically, the peddlers constitute by far the largest class, but 
according to these figures the largest purchasers are the jobbers. 
Peddlers who handle only a small volume of goods frequently com- 
bine to buy at auction. By pooling their requirements they are en- 
abled to purchase in quantities equal to one or more auction units. 
One of their number, known as the boss peddler, usually does the 
buying and the goods are split up later among the group, which 
generally concedes the so-called boss peddler a profit on the trans- 
actions. 
Since practically all classes of the wholesale buying trade are rep- 
resented at the auction, a buyer can be found at some price for each 
line offered, regardless of its quality or condition, provided the goods 
have some merchantable value. Since the commodities are sorted 
into " lines," the buyer at auction can buy the variety, grade, and size 
that he wishes, and is not compelled to purchase something he does 
not need in order to secure something he wants. 
