Produce Markets and Marketing (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911. Excerpt: ... If the true history of the system of handling eggs could be written it would read like a fairy tale. Forsooth, a story replete with elves and grottoes and with moonbeams playing hide and seek over a placid lake, with a Cinderella frolicking with the fairies, could be no more entrancing to one who has followed closely the ins and outs, and the ups and downs of a season's record of the egg deal during any given year, at least, in the past decade. It is not exaggerating to say that no less imagination is required to enter into a full understanding of the stories in a juvenile fairy book than is necessary to grasp the variable fortunes of the prosaic commodity under consideration. However, I hope no staid egg man will be so unkind as to accuse ine of trying to belittle his honored calling by suggesting the comparison cited above, although if someone is disposed to find fault with me for so doing I have but to declare that not a few times have I mused over the striking similarity between a downright fairy tale and the unsubstantial shadow of prospective profits in a heavy load of high-priced eggs that hang trembling in the balance so delicately poised that even an excited breath sends the whole load down with a crash that makes strong men shudder and all but weep as the simple child when he suffers the first rude awakening from his illusion about the capers of Santa Claus or Mother Goose. But why open this chapter on eggs with a dissertation on the seamy side? Wherefore this talk about fairies? Shall I make the bold confession that I candidly believe eggs are the most speculative commodity in the whole realm of produce? If so, I shall spare further suspense and will take you into my confidence so as to make a short cut to the meat of our subject by saying I be...