Suggestions for Parcel Post Marketing

1916

Farmers' Bulletin

Number 703

National Agricultural Library

This bulletin contains information and suggestions for persons desiring to sell or buy produce by parcel post. A great deal of marketing has been and is now being done by this method. Many persons, however, are only partially informed or perhaps entirely unaware of the requirements necessary to market farm produce successfully in this manner. An extensive campaign of education is necessary in order that both producers and consumers may realize its possibilities as well as its limitations. The increased cost of living has caused many persons to look to securing produce by parcel post as a means of relief, and some have been disappointed because of unsatisfactory results arising from various causes. Physically the transportation of practically all kinds of produce is a possibility; economically it is frequently not justifiable.

A thorough study of the possibility of marketing farm products by parcel post is being conducted by the Department of Agriculture with the intention of publishing the results in a series of bulletins, each dealing with a specific phase of the question. The first of these publications, "Shipping Eggs by Parcel Post," was issued as Farmers' Bulletin 594. The present bulletin contains general information which has been accumulated in the course of these investigations and which should be of use to those producers and consumers who are interested in the more general phases of the subject.

U.S. Department of Agriculture