In selling rice at warehouses or on the New Orleans Board of Trade, sealed bids are submitted by the buyers and the sale is expected to be made to the highest bidder. In cities as far west as Chicago it is a common practice to sell fruit in warehouses which may be owned by railroads and used by auction companies. A consignment of California or Georgia fruit, for instance, will be sent to a commission merchant in New York, who will have the fruit sold to his account by the auction company.

Stock yards. The largest wholesale market places open to the producers are the stock yards in such cities as Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, and St. Louis. Sales in these stock yards may be made direct by the owner of the stock to the ultimate purchaser, but it is customary for transactions to be made through commission men.

Different classes of middlemen; traveling buyers. Selling to buyers who come to the farm is practised to some degree in many parts of the United States. Traveling hucksters in many regions go from farm to farm gathering eggs, butter, poultry, calves, and similar commodities, which they sell to shippers, jobbers, or retail dealers. Agents of large merchants go to farms on the Pacific coast to buy hops, to ranges in the Rocky Mountains for wool, to plantations in Louisiana and southeastern Texas to bargain for rice, and to the orchards of the apple-producing states east of the Rocky Mountains. The cattle buyer also is a frequent visitor at many farms, especially where stock raising is a secondary industry.

General merchants. One of the most important persons in the distribution of some products is the merchant of the town or the rural community. He is often the first receiver of such products as eggs, farm-made butter, poultry, wool, hides, and sometimes cotton, grain, and hay. It was the custom a number of years ago, possibly more so than at present, for a local merchant to credit a planter of cotton or rice with supplies for a crop year, and to take a lien upon a growing crop to cover the value of the merchandise thus sold. In such a case it was frequently the custom for the crop when ready for market to be turned over to the merchant by the planter, who received the difference between his debt and the proceeds from the crop. The importance of the country mer-.

chant as a distributing factor in some regions is diminishing, for he has been supplanted to a greater or less degree by dealers in special products.

Local buyers of special products. In the regions where grain is a staple product the tendency has been for the storekeeper to be displaced by the grain dealer and the local elevator man. Among other examples of local buyers of special produce are the California fruit packer, who buys from growers; the egg and poultry shipper in the Middle West, whose purchases are made from country merchants and who ships by carload lots to wholesale dealers; the San Francisco wool merchant, who buys on the range and sells in the East; the poultry packer in the North Central States, who buys live fowls, slaughters them, and consigns to eastern cities; and the "track buyers" of watermelons in the region near San Antonio, Tex., of peaches in Georgia, and of hogs in the corn belt.

Commission dealers. The commission dealer is the agent through whom a large amount of produce is sold for farmers or country shippers. The commission man usually represents the seller, but there are instances where he serves as agent of the buyer, as in some sales of live stock to distant buyers or in the purchase of Pacific coast hops for eastern dealers.

In addition to serving as agent in making a sale, the commission man may advance money to a producer or to a country buyer, as when a live-stock commission firm loans money to feeders or when a grain-commission firm supplies a local grain dealer with sufficient cash to begin his season's purchases. Another phase of commission dealing is that engaged in by rice and cotton factors, who advance money on crop liens, and to whom these products are frequently consigned to be sold on commission. In some States, for instance in South Carolina, banks are reported to be taking the place of the cotton factors in making loans, and the presence of buyers and neighboring mills enables planters sometimes to market their cotton without the aid of factors. Another class of factors are those in the Baltimore tobacco trade, who receive consignments, for instance, from farmers in Maryland and Ohio, and who sell to exporters.

Commission for selling.1 Rates of commission for selling fruits and vegetables may range from 5 to 10 per cent of the gross proceeds of sales. A cooperative organization of farmers is sometimes able to retain part of this selling commission for its own use. The members of one southern fruit association paid for selling their products 10 per cent of gross proceeds, of which generally 6 per cent was given the northern commission dealer and 4 per cent was retained in the treasury of the association. There are numerous other instances of commissions based upon proceeds of sales, among which may be mentioned the charges for selling rice at New Orleans and clover seed at Milwaukee.

For selling grain and live stock at large markets the rates of commission are based generally upon the quantity sold and not upon proceeds of the sales. The rules of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce fix the rate for selling wheat, barley, or rye at 1 cent per bushel, corn or oats at one-half cent per bushel, and hay at 50 cents per ton. These rates apply to produce received under usual conditions. About the same charges prevail in other large markets.

In the tobacco warehouses of Virginia and North Carolina auctioneers' charges are determined by the number and weight of piles sold, and the "commission agents" who buy hops for wholesale dealers are frequently paid from one-fourth to one-half cent per pound.

Exporters. The exporter's business has some points in common with that of the local buyer in domestic trade; both classes of middlemen obtain their wares from sources relatively near at hand, and sell them in a distant market, either direct or through commission dealers. The exporter has to keep informed not only concerning the commercial regulations

1[Paragraphs from p. 162, here inserted.] and market conditions of various countries, but also in regard to freight rates along the various lines of transportation over which his goods are apt to be carried. The fluctuations of freight rates, especially by water, make the cost of transportation lowest sometimes over one route and sometimes over another. In shipping wheat from Nebraska to Liverpool the grain may be sent through one of eight or ten large seaports ranging from Montreal around the coast to Galveston; and at a number of these ports tramp ships may be bidding against the regular lines for cargo. In case New York is selected as the port of shipment, the grain may be sent thither direct from Nebraska, or it may be transferred to a lake steamer at Chicago, to be reloaded at Buffalo either on canal boats or railroad cars.