80 3Iississippi Valley Horticultural Society 



the wealth of our horticultural resources, which are often very poorly utilized. 

 There are many districts where the money received from the orchards and 

 gardens exceeds the proiits from all other branches of agriculture. 



The business aspects of horticulture are worthy of very serious attention, 

 and the societies and the newsi)apers, which work to promote these really 

 immense and rapidly expanding interests, should receive all necessary recog- 

 nition and support. It is a leading purpose of this Societj^ to introduce better 

 methods in this business in various directions. We want better management 

 in field and orchard; better and more certain crops; better facilities for 

 transportation ; wider markets. And we want to promote a greater sympa- 

 thy and spirit of co-operation between all the various sections competing in 

 these enterprises, and between the different agencies necessary to make this 

 business a commercial and financial success. We, who grow fruit, should 

 cheerfully recognize the fact that there are other men who are as essential 

 factors to the successful issue of our business as the producers themselves. 

 Can the grower of peaches or strawberries in Mississippi or Michigan, in 

 California or Delaware, make it a profitable enterprise without the facilities 

 furnished by railroad companies, and without the indispensable agency of 

 the fruit merchant or commission dealer ? You will all agree with me that 

 without these three factors of production, transportation, and sale, there 

 could be no such thing as commercial fruit growing, as we understand it. 



A topic quite worthy of our thought is that of our relations to that factor 

 in this business enterprise, the agency of 



THE COMMISSION MERCHANT. 



There has been some wild and foolish talk in certain rural circles about 

 that "superfluous being'' in this world, " the middle man." I think that this 

 talk has never done any good. I am sure it has done much harm. Now it 

 is simply absurd to suppose that great crops of any kind, horticultural or 

 cereal, can be marketed, as great crops must be, hundreds and thousands of 

 miles away from the place of their production, without the help of the mid- 

 dle man. Strike down the agency of the commission merchant, and we 

 should have no grand system of commercial fruit growing. Looking at this 

 question as I do in this light, I have sought to bring these two classes in this 

 one interest together in this Society, that a better accpiaintance, a clearer un- 

 derstanding, a stronger sympathy, and a fuller conlidence miglit be engen- 

 dered between us. Tt has been common to hear, in certain fruit growing 

 circles, serious charges made against the faithfulness and the honesty of com- 

 mission men as a class. I think this is very imi)olitic and very unjust. There 

 doubtless are rascals in this trade, as in all otliors, but this should not lead 

 us to reflect unfairly upon a very large, useful and honest class of merchants. 

 You will excuse my .saying that I have had something to do with commission 

 fruit merchants for nearly a quarter of a century, having done business with 

 over one hundred and fifty of them in some eighty cities of twenty states 

 and provinces, without ever having consciously been cheated out of a dollar 



