22 BULLETIN 1362, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
The buyer, as soon as the goods have been "knocked down" or sold 
to him, may issue instructions to the auction company to deliver cer- 
tain portions of the lot to persons other than himself. The written 
order giving such directions is commonly known as a division slip 
(fig. 12). Division slips are used by buying brokers to advise the 
auction company that the goods bought are to be charged to the 
principal rather than the agent. 
BROKEN PACKAGES 
When cars are unloaded frequently a few packages are found which 
have been broken in transit. These are repaired and repacked either 
by the carrier or by the auction company. Those which can be re- 
stored to their original condition are stacked and sold with the line 
and the remainder are sold at auction to the trade as broken packages 
or turned over to the railroad company for disposition. The prices 
at which the broken packages and the corresponding line are sold are 
recorded, and on this record is based whatever claim the shipper may 
make against the carrier for loss on broken packages. 
Broken packages are known in some markets as ullages or as 
A-lines. This latter term is commonly employed to indicate not only 
broken packages, but samples, parts of marks, and containers found 
to be wrongly marked or in some way different from the remainder 
of the line. 
SPLIT SALE 
When sales of a commodity in a given market are divided between 
the auction and private sales or between two or three auction com- 
panies selling at the same time and in competition, the prime pur- 
pose of the auction — the bringing of the forces of supply and de- 
mand to a sharp focus — is defeated to a greater or lesser degree. 
" Split sales " — that is, the use of both the auction and private 
sale by an individual" or organization in selling a commodity in a 
given market — tend to complicate the distribution of that commodity 
somewhat and often cause the returns to be less satisfactory than if 
the sales were all made either by one method or the other. Split 
sales cause the product of the same marketing organization to enter 
into competition with itself, and permit the buying trade which relies 
on that particular brand to fill its needs more or less completely at 
private sale before the auction opens, or vice versa. They cause the 
demand to be divided between the auction room and the street, 
thereby separating instead of convening the buyers. It is evident 
that the most satisfactory results can not be achieved bj the auction 
when a large number of dealers are devoting their utmost efforts to 
sell at private sale as large blocks as possible of the best brands to 
their most discriminating trade and offering only a residual portion 
of the commodity on the auction. The converse, of course, is likewise 
true. 
Manifestly the situation is different when practically the whole of 
a given line of produce, uniformly graded and packed in standard- 
ized containers, is offered exclusively at auction. As a matter of 
sales policy some of the largest distributors of citrus fruits dispose of 
their entire offerings in the various markets either by auction or by 
private sale, but do not divide their sales between the two methods. 
