2 BULLETIN 267, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
the means whereby his produce finally reaches the consumer might 
exert a very appreciable influence on the producer's method of grad- 
ing, packing, shipping, or selling. 
This bulletin is designed to assist the shipper in obtaining a better 
understanding of prevailing practices and of distributing agencies. 
This should enable him to use the existing machinery of distribution 
more intelligently and to avoid certain needless annoyances and 
losses. Attention is confined to general practices on the larger mar- 
kets which receive fruits and vegetables in car lots from distant 
points. The facts are presented in explanatory form and some at- 
tempt has been made to give specific advice as to how certain results 
are to be secured. 
A glossary of the trade terms and expressions as used in this bul- 
letin will be found on pages 26 and 27. As these terms are not used in 
exactly the same sense in all parts of the country, this glossary should 
be consulted freely. 
NECESSITY FOR DISTRIBUTING AGENCIES. 
The development of transportation facilities and the extension of 
our agricultural area have widened the distance between producer 
and consumer. This is as true commercially as it is physically. This 
condition has brought with it many difficulties, and the services of 
specialists have been required to accomplish the distribution of large 
crops over wide areas. Certain channels of trade have been created 
and there are numerous avenues through which the farmer may reach 
the consumer. Few of these avenues are direct. The movement of 
farm products from producer to consumer appears to both to proceed 
in most cases along circuitous and devious ways. 
This extensive commerce in food products has called into existence 
many special agencies in that large class known as ''middlemen." 
During recent years there has been a great deal of agitation against 
those engaged in food distribution. Few people have any clear idea 
as to just who these middlemen are and what functions they per- 
form. It is probably not going too far to say that, to the uninitiated, 
the middleman is a rather hazily defined person, whose chief func- 
tion is to levy, arbitrarily, a heavy tribute on all foodstuffs passing 
from the producer to the consumer. The attention of the public has 
been directed to increased costs rather than to service rendered. 
Evidently it has never occurred to many who clamor for reform that 
economic conditions would not permit the long continued existence 
of a marketing agency which was simply a parasite. Sooner or later 
business competition must eliminate all intermediate agencies which 
perform no definite useful functions. 
Several important factors have contributed to the establishment of 
many middlemen as necessary agents in the present system of market- 
