STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 55 



large per cent of profit from our business; because it is ex- 

 pensive to sell througli the commission man. Now if he is an 

 honest commission man he of course is a very great aid to us 

 at the present time, but unfortunately all the men in the busi- 

 ness are not honest. The fact is, there are too many men in 

 the business and in order to live, in order to pay their expenses, 

 it is quite the practice among some of them not to return hon- 

 est sales. I don't know whether I have given you any illustra- 

 tions or not along these lines, but I had a client whom I was 

 advising here in New England who sent his fruit to the Boston 

 market. He was not receiving for his apples what he supposed 

 he should receive, nor according to the quotations of the Bos- 

 ton market. He was a banker and I had advised him in the 

 purchase of a farm and had laid out for him his general policy 

 for spraying and cultivating his orchards, and indicated to him 

 that the Boston market was one of the best in this country and 

 that if he grew igood fruit he certainly would get satisfactory 

 prices for it. I received a letter from this banker saying that 

 he had shipped a large quantity of his apples all through the 

 autumn and into the early winter and was not receiving what 

 he thought he ought to get. His general sales were $1.50 a 

 barrel when reports for fine fruit ran up to three and four 

 dollars and even four dollars and a half a barrel. I replied to 

 him that if he was positive that his fruit was well put up and 

 carefully graded and shipped in good condiion, he cer- 

 tainly should receive more than he was getting, and advised 

 him to put up fifteen or twenty barrels of his best fruit as he 

 had been doing, send it in to the same salesman, send in his 

 own farm foreman and buy the fruit himself and then he would 

 find out what he should receive. He did so, and when his 

 farmer reached the market and the truck drove up with his 

 twelve or fifteen barrels upon it and was unloaded, he stepped 

 up to the sidewalk and began to inquire the price of apples. 

 He saw his own barrels unloaded and opened and examined 

 them critically and said that evidently that was pretty good 

 fruit. He wanted assurance that the fruit ran uniformly 

 through the barrel as it was opened and he was made to under- 

 stand that the fruit was absolutely packed honestly and could 

 be depended upon. He inquired what would be the price for that 

 lot of apples if he should take the whole of them, and he was 



