The record-union., 1892-05-25
THAT PRECIOUS PEANUT.
An Elementary Lesson in Political
Economy,
AS Related to Customs of the Retail
Trade-Some Interesting Illus
trationS Thereof.

from the Travelling Correspondent Of the
RECoRD-UNIoN.
AMADoR CITY, May %. - Sometime
since L was thinking of raising pea
nuts between my young trees, and
had occasion TO learn that they were
worth q cents per pound, If very nne.
The other day / was watching the young
sters in one of our mountain towns as
they came up and paid their nickle apiece
for half glass of peanuts. After ADDING
reasonable wholesale profit and excessive
freight there remained retail profit on
that transaction OF not less than 900 per
cent Oh! that precious peanut!
Yet this is custom of trade, and Gus
tom that tempts ten men TO Go the work
of one and crowds our towns with drones.
When l could not buy over three or four
pounds of pears at the corner grocery in
San Francisco for two bits, have seen
them rotuing under the trees at Santa
Rosa because the farmers said 1t would
not pay to send them 10 the city. Per
haps cents of the two bits they asked
was for freight. What was the rest Tor
but to support a man and his family on a
trade of 50 to $40 per day, requiring one
hours work and nine hours waiting.
/ bought a pencil worth at wholesale
81 per gross at mountain town, twenty
miles away from the railroad, for 10 cents.
Less than quarter of pound OF paper,
worth II cents a pound at wholesale, was
offered me yesterday for % cents.
The principle runs through all lines of
goods not dealt in as staples, and goes far
TO account for the fact that the census
shows AZ per cent. of the people of Cali
tornia living in towns OF over 300 peo-
pie. Does any economist question but
that if 25 per cent. of this urban popula-
ton was transferred to active production
the balance could do the WORK of trans
portation and distribution equally well
and have the proceeds Of five mems labor
out of every eight to divide, instead OF
four under the present system? II these
customs of trade prevailed in England
we think tho cost of her standing armies
and navies, with her aristocracy, would
completely crush her producers.
Let us take the article of cheese and
follow it from producer to consumer in a
way to show differing trade customs. The
Iowa factory sells for eight cents pound.
The grocer in his own town buys forty
pound cheese tor So 20, and is two weeks
selling out thirty-two pounds OF it at tit-
teen cents a pound, yielding him 81 90
profit The rest is wasted. \ OF much in
the cheese business. Another cheese
goes to England, costing in New York
nine cents, in Liverpool nine and QUE
fourth cents and the retailer ten cents q
pound. He sells at siXpence pound,
but his customers use it as staple, buy
ing a few pounds every week. His
cheese only lasts day, and brings him
9i,lor 81 profit. Pretty good for cheese,
after all; but the grocer has been busy.
His people, 1900 miles from the point OF
production, got their supply of cheese
cheaper than in the town where 1t was
made, and at the same time dealers were
more prosperous, but under a different
system of trade
This is the very point we have to con-
slider in our fruit trade. If retailers in
certain towns in the East demand twenty
five cents for pruneS that cost them eight,
because they are fine and come from Cali
fornia, very few will be used the market
will be flooded, and they will soon get
them at four. We have to protect our
selves by protecting the consumer, rather
than by depending on the regular trade
to do ii.
The butcher will charge you fifteen
cents for steak, when he pays two cents,
live weight, for his cattle, just the same
as when he must pay four, and the rest
of the regular trade will do the same so
long as it is the custom.
Our prunes, pears, peaches, apricots
and raisins can be delivered to consum-
ers at price to make them staple articles
of diet, and producers should nail to the
masthead these words indicating an in
flexible line of business policy: "Our
products must be handled as staples"
We must put up our goods in packages
as convenient for the trade and in quality
as reliable as sugar or flour, and wherever
we find town where no merchant will
handle them on a similar basis Of profit
I put man there who will do it long
enough to thoroughly introduce the
goods and change the system.
When one merchant in a town deals in
popular line of goods on this basis it
will not take other dealers long to adopt
the plan rather than lose trade, but if we
wait for the regular trade to change the
custom our coats may grow ragged and
our hair turn gray.
FRANK S. CHAPLIN.