EXPENSE FACTORS IN CITY DISTRIBUTION OF PERISHABLES 17 
vary directly with the size of the retailer's sale, as shown graphically 
in Figure 7. Since general regularity exists in the association of 
size of jobber's sale with size of retail sale, and since there is also no 
association between jobbers' spread and retailers' spread, it is not 
possible to explain variations in jobbers' spreads by the variability 
in size of the jobber's sale. 
Table 6. — Relation between size of jobber's sale and size of retailer's sale, New York 
metropolitan area, February, 1923, to May, 1924 
Commodity 
Mean 
number 
of pounds 
per job- 
ber's sale 
Mean 
number 
of pounds 
per retail- 
er's sale 
Number 
of retail 
sales per 
jobber's 
sale 1 
Eastern lettuce 
Western lettuce 
Peaches 
Sweet potatoes 
Boxed apples 
California oranges 
Southern cabbage 
Cantaloupes 
Barreled apples 
White onios 
Yellow onions 
Northern cabbage 
Southern potatoes 
Northern potatoes 
Weighted mean 
65 
75 
SO 
84 
95 
96 
100 
100 
no 
125 
133 
225 
1.75 
1.50 
2.25 
2.75 
2.25 
2.50 
2.75 
3.25 
3.00 
2.25 
3.25 
4.00 
3.75 
6.50 
32.5 
i Allowing for shrinkage in retail selling according to Table 2. 
INFLUENCE OF WHOLESALE PRICE CHANGES ON JOBBERS' SPREAD 
Speculative risks due to price variations in the wholesale market 
might, with some reason, be expected to influence the selling policies 
of dealers in the jobbing market and thus to account for variability 
in jobbers' price spreads for different kinds of commodities. Tests 
were therefore made to ascertain if any regular association existed 
between the jobbers' portion in the standard retail sale and varia- 
bility in wholesale price. 
A measure of variation is required that will avoid the effects of 
pronounced seasonal price trends. The usual measures of dispersion, 
such as average deviation and standard deviation, are unsatisfactory 
for this purpose. An adequate quantitative measure is required to 
indicate comparable price changes in the variable seasons when 
different articles are in the market. For this purpose, the wholesale 
price of each commodity was taken for an identical day in each week 
of the season during which it was officially reported in the New York 
wholesale market. 6 The average week-to-week change in price, 
either up or down, was determined and expressed as a percentage of 
the season's mean wholesale price for the given commodity. 
This percentage is an accurate measure of tendency-to-change in 
wholesale price, which may be used as an index for comparing the 
different commodities. The price variability of eastern lettuce, for 
example, is shown by its index of 26.4 per cent to be very much 
6 Prices for Thursday of each week were taken from the Daily Market Report of the United States 
Department of Agriculture. Orange prices were secured from the Daily Fruit Reporter, published by a 
private company. 
86186°— 26 3 
