Then we substituted 2 cartons that cost us 28 cents, that is 56 cents versus possibly 70 to 95 cents.

We took a step forward. That was not enough. We used to harvest the produce and load it in big baskets and haul it into the packing house and crate it there. We took the packinghouse to the field, so to speak. In doing so we eliminated one haul, and we actually eliminated certain steps.

For example, we trim the stuff right in the field. We package it. We eliminated ice-car loaders and label boys because these cartons were printed.

We saved approximately 50 cents a crate. That varies now. Maybe from 35 to 50 cents depending on the season and the operation and everything, which would make that we are putting up units of 24 heads now from 15 to 25 cents cheaper, lower cost to us, than we did 5 years ago.

Mr. ANFUSO. Thank you very much, Mr. Crean. We are certainly very grateful to you for coming here all the way from California.

Mr. CREAN. May I say before I leave if it had not been hot in the East this summer and so forth, if they had not been playing the World Series in Milwaukee and New York I probably would not have been able to make it. [Laughter.]

Mr. ANFUSO. Mr. Clark has been kind enough to come from Milton, N. Y., and he is an apple grower. I think that Mr. McIntire would like to ask you some questions.

STATEMENT OF JAMES R. CLARK, MILTON, N. Y.

Mr. McINTIRE. Do I understand correctly that Milton, N. Y., is up the Hudson Valley?

Mr. CLARK. That is right.

Mr. McINTIRE. How large a grower are you?

Mr. CLARK. We grew about 40,000 boxes of apples this year.

Mr. McINTIRE. You have your own cold storage?

Mr. CLARK. I do.

Mr. McINTIRE. What are your usual market outlets, on a farmsale basis or do you sell on a delivered basis?

Mr. CLARK. Principally f. o. b., at farm. We are in the center of a large apple-producing district. Úlster County in which I live is the second largest in this State and 3 million boxes is the production. It is a big cold-storage center and there are a number of wholesale brokers and other operators in the wholesale field who maintain their points of business right in our district, and we do principally a direct sale at the packing house system of merchandising.

Mr. McINTIRE. They are sold mostly in truck form?

Mr. CLARK. Yes.

Mr. McINTIRE. Do you do any processing?

Mr. CLARK. We do not do any processing. We sell relatively a small amount for processing, but principally direct.

Mr. MCINTIRE. Do you pack for Government inspection or do you have your own brand specification?

Mr. CLARK. We pack according to Government specifications. The only time that actual inspection formally takes place is for export

shipments which require a certificate. Our local traders and our sales that are distributed in the area in which we sell normally are not inspected, at least, not for every shipment.

Mr. MCINTIRE. You pack your own brand?

Mr. CLARK. We pack under our own firm name. I do not actually

have a brand.

Mr. McINTIRE. What has been some of the factors of increased cost to you as a producer over the past 2 or 3 years? In order to get a better package are you grading more tightly in order to get a better package on the market?

Mr. CLARK. Possibly so. I think, though, we have graded according to the same grade specification for quite a number of years. The other factors that are involved in grading is that the market requirements are becoming, aside from the actual grades themselves, more strict. We find that there is an increasing greater differential between the best and poorest grades and the more desirable sizes and poorer sizes.

Mr. McINTIRE. Your principal competitive area is in the New York market. Who are you competing with when you go into New York for sale?

Mr. CLARK. We are our own worst competitors. I think that is the first thing. We all recognize that in our area.

The principal producing section in the Pacific Northwest is far enough from us, so that we can compete with them by virtue of the freight differential very handily.

The Appalachian section in the Shenandoah Valley and the Pennsylvania district are somewhat nearer, but do not produce the many varieties that are acceptable to our local and New England markets.

Our biggest competitors in our area are, for instance, the New Jersey and eastern New York sections, all of whom are the growers who depend upon the market levels of this metropolitan area for their general market level.

Mr. McINTIRE. Could you advise the committee from your experience what some of the cost factors are between the price you receive and the price that the ladies have paid for New York apples?

Mr. CLARK. I was rather impressed with Mr. Crean's testimony as to the commodity produced as far from the consumer as his, and as different as lettuce from apples. Nevertheless, his proportions are not far from what we find. We find that the cost of production up to the time the fruit is picked is about 50 percent of the total cost of production at the point of sale, which would be my packinghouse.

The other 50 percent is accrued after the ladder is put in the tree and the picker starts to pick the fruit. The cost of labor for the whole operation is about 50 percent of the total production cost.

Mr. McINTIRE. When you mention that your cost of labor for the whole operation is about 50 percent of the total cost, you mean up to the point when it is ready to leave your farm?

Mr. CLARK. Correct. I am talking about the f. o. b. price before it moves. The cost of the delivery from our farm to a metropolitan consumer, obviously, is not as high as it is from the west coast, but it is a fairly substantial amount.

For example, a box of apples that might have sold last night in this market for $3 on a consigned basis would net back to me $2.35 or $2.40. That box of apples only had to travel about 70 miles. It was placed on

a truck that picked it up at my packinghouse and delivered it to the receiver here directly. There is no transfer involved.

Mr. McINTIRE. Do you not have the lighterage and all of that? Mr. CLARK. No. We have the direct delivery from our area into the New York markets. That is true in Manhattan, in the lower district here. A good deal of our fruit goes to the box terminal market. Some of it goes to merchant truckmen who buy pickup with their own trucks and deliver from those trucks directly to their stores who are their customers.

Mr. McINTIRE. What proportion of your fruit in your area would be sold in that manner, more or less direct; in other words, to the purchaser at the farm level performing the same function as the receiver and jobber does in the market-what proportion of your fruit went that way?

Mr. CLARK. My guess is that two-thirds of our fruit is sold that way. That is only a guess, I can't say for certain, but I am quite sure. There is a lot of fruit in a large crop year that goes out of the State. Most of that goes through two hands, a broker and a final receiver.

In this case I would say a very large proportion of the fruit, of the apples sold in this metropolitan area are by that rather direct sale. Mr. McINTIRE. Are you packing in a shipping box or do you pack in cellophane consumer-size packages the same as this?

Mr. CLARK. We pack ours only in a wooden applebox or a cardboard

carton.

Mr. McINTIRE. What has been the increase in producing good apples in the last 5 years-how much have your costs increased, generally speaking?

Mr. CLARK. Probably in the vicinity of 20 percent. That is a guess because I haven't made a detailed comparison. I would say that our costs have gone up at least 25 to 30 percent. And since 1940, before the war, our costs have doubled in actual dollars.

Mr. McINTIRE. That is all.

Mr. ANFUSO. Thank you very much. If there are no other ques-
tions, I would like to ask one question before we recess at 12:30.
We are grateful to you for coming from upstate to be here.
Mr. CLARK. Thank you.

Mr. ANFUSO. I would like to ask you a question, Dr. Campbell.
Dr. CAMPBELL. I will be glad to answer.

Mr. ANFUSO. The testimony thus far has shown there is a wide variation in New York City retail stores in the prices of virtually identical commodities.

Is this variation possible because there is so little food advertising in New York papers? There is a lot, I know, in Washington, D. C.

Would it help if there was some agency-city, State, or Federal, or even a consumer group-which made a daily survey of retail prices and published them in the papers for the guidance of housewives?

Dr. CAMPBELL. May I say that for many years, in the early morning, information has been given on wholesale prices of certain products over the radio.

Mr. ANFUSO. Over the radio?

Dr. CAMPBELL. I don't know how many people hear that.

Mr. ANFUSO. Was this wholesale?

Dr. CAMPBELL. They go in and pick up the wholesale prices and they give the wholesale prices merely an indication.

Mr. ANFUSO. What about retail?

Dr. CAMPBELL. In the retail stores.

Mrs. PRYOR. These are retail prices in this list.
Dr. CAMPBELL. This is the Daily Guide.

Mr. ANFUSO. The Daily Guide?

Mrs. PRYOR. This is the Daily Guide.

Mr. ANFUSO. This is a Daily Guide put out by the Department of Markets of the City of New York, Bureau of Consumers' Service. Is this published in any newspapers?

Mrs. PERSINGER. Some of the columns use it. A number of the newspapers have food columns. You can always find out if you wanted to what is a food buy for that day.

Mr. ANFUSO. Do you think more of this should be done? Do you think that this should be done in a form of an attractive ad in the newspapers?

Mrs. PRYOR. Yes.

Mr. ANFUSO. We will take this for the record if you don't mind. (The statement referred to is as follows:)

[From Department of Markets, City of New York, Bureau of Consumers' Service and

Research]

WEEKLY RETAIL PRICE REPORT, NEW YORK CITY

FOR WEEK ENDED OCTOBER 3, 1957

Meat: Two popular beef cuts are lower in cost this week: Porterhouse and round steak are both 6 cents a pound lower than the previous week. Lower prices are also noted on sliced bacon. All other cuts are unchanged in most shops.

Poultry: All poultry prices remain at the general levels of a week ago. Butter Butter production is keeping pace with demand and prices continue at the advanced levels of 2 weeks ago.

Milk Milk advanced one-half cent per quart during the week. Current prices are at record high-2 cents a quart higher than in October 1956.

Eggs: Large and medium grade A eggs advanced 2 cents a dozen, partly reflecting higher wholesale costs.

Fish: Yellow pike dropped sharply-30 cents a pound, whitefish and carp are also lower in cost as an aftermath of the heavy holiday demand for fresh-water fish last week.

In the salt-water category, scallops and shrimp show a downtrend while Boston mackerel registered a rise of 4 cents a pound.

Fruits and vegetables: Snap beans, cucumbers, eggplant, escarole, radishes, squash, and tomatoes show advances of 2 to 4 cents per unit of sale. On the other hand cauliflower and white and red cabbage are lower in cost.

In the fruit listings, advances are indicated on cantaloupes, table pears, and plums.

For good buys, listen to the department of markets' food guide program over station WNYC at 8:45 every morning from Monday through Friday and at guest time at 8: 40 every Tuesday morning over station WNYC.