Norwich bulletin., 1910-10-01
Prices Paid for Produce and Prices Charged


written Specially for The Bulletin.)
My New York paper prints, every
week or SO, an article on the "NeWS
of the Markets" containing the retail
prices charged consumers in that city
for meats, fish, vegetables, etc. The
last one at hand has afforded ME some
interesting comparisons. l happen to
be in the territory from which New
York city draws a part of its supplies
BUYERS are not infrequent here look
ing up produce for the big market.
Consequently l have a fair opportunity
TO know what prices we producers are
offered for certain grades of goods.
When 1 set them down. beside the
prices which consumers in the big city
are charged for similar goods, the re-
suit is sometimes startling.
For instance Corn is 40 cents doz-
Ell this week" But the buyers offer to
me is so cents a hundred, or just a trif1e
over four cents d dozen, for corn to go
to New York
"Muskmelons are Is cents each" The
buyers think they are generous IT they
offer me a dollar a hundred. or one cent
apiece for first quality melons for this
same market
Ca btAges. lettuce and romaine are
] 0 cents a head" have been offered
$3.50 hundred for cabbage to ship to
New 1ork, or cent anu d IldiL per
head
Tomatoes are 10 cents a. pound" IL
I viii furnish the crates and the bask-
cts and pay the eXpressage, l know
one commission man who VIII give me
almost two cents and a half a pound
prOvfaed the tomatoes arrive safely,
are all just right, none too ripe and all
ripe enough, none specked and none
bruised.
"Greening apples are Is cents a
quart" In an ordinary apple barrel
there are about eighty quarts. which
would be worth, at this rate, $12. The
apple BUYERS reckon greening apples
dear, here, at S1.25 per barrel.
Celery is so cents a tens talked
bunch" That is just exactly twelve
times as much as the dealers Will offer
me for it in quantity.
MEAT Is still very high. particularly
in the lines Of lamb and veal. Racks OF
lamb are back TO the old figure of %
cents per pound" So reports the New
York paper of the New York retail
market Day before yesterday a buy
err for that market came to look over
my lambs. Said he: you know that
lamb and mutton are way down. All
other meats are high but these" "So?'
I murrnured, sympathetically. He crit
ically examined my bunch Of lambs,
which will average about IS pounds
apiece, and-offered me $3.50 head
for them. or four and two-thirds cents
q pound,
Now, do you know that sort of thing
makes me almighty mad? If the prices
which are offered me are fair, then the
prices charged the New York city con-
eumers are outrageous robbery. If on
the other hand, the prices charged con-
sumers in New York city are fair, then
the prices offered the producer are pri-
ma facie evidence of an attempt out
rageously to swindle him. There's rob
+11sa
progress of those meats and vegetables
from producer to consumer. Who gets
the benefit OF the pillage You can figure
out as well as / certainly the consum-
err seems justified in his complaints
about high prices; and, as certainly,
the producer isn't getting any appre-
ciable benefit from them.
OF course, | am not selling things
to go to New York or anywhere else
at the prices which have noted as
having been offered to me or my neigh
bors. Neither am I getting for them
IN my own market any such figures as
the city consumers are paying But,
Just to make the thing seem slJbstan-
tial and concrete. let's suppose that l
had sold at the prices offered thou
sand ears of corn, and a hundred
muskmelonS, and a hundred cabbages,
and a hundred pounds OF tomatoes. and
q barrel of greening apples, and hun
dred punches of celery, and ten To-
pound lambs. l should have got for
the lot S51.25. The consumers in New
York city would have paid for exactly
that same lot, at the retail prices
quoted, S238.95. This is difference of
s1S770-pretty fair profit on an in
vestment Of S51.25. Ell? Put it another
way: or every $2.39 which the New
York consumer pays for his trucll 81
cents goes for the stuff itself and $1.SS
10 pay the handlers in between. More
than three-Quafters of the cost to the
consumer is for somebody's service
and somebody's profit; less than one
quarter for the meat and vegetables he
eats.
Now don't know how much of this
three quarters is taken by the rail-
roads for freight, and how much by
the buyer and how much by the job
Der" and how much by the retailer. /
do know that there is Something
mighty rotten in the state of Denmark
and the United States of America when
1t costs three times as much to get a
ca bbage from the farm on Podunk
Flats to the kitchen on Seventy second
street as the cabbage itself is worth. l
do know either that | ought to get
mora for those greening apples. or that
the consumer is paying about ten times
too much. And I'm beginning to think
that it's time for a big revolution in
the way of getting foodstuffs from pro-
Queer to consumer If the result of
our hundred years of private business
enterprise, where every man gets all
he can and gives as little as he must,
is nothing better than this sort of
thing. It is time that some new theory
of business were worked out
I'm not a socialist. ] have always
had and now have veTitabIs aversion
10 the thing which is known by that
name. Bus hate hogs and hoggish-
ness even more than cTankiness and
ideslism. It used 10 be a theory of
economists that prices would always
come to the right level il Individual
competition were allowed full swing