352 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and cabbage worm, in the saA'iiig of our apples and grapes, and is now 

 grappling with yellows. Science has been, and will continue to be, of vast 

 use in horticulture. True, the scientist will not usurp the place of the 

 practical man, but science will continvu^ to lead us. 



Secretary LaFleuk read a description of the Delaware exchange, from 

 the American Agriculturist, entitled 



MAlilvETIXG THE PENINSULA PEACH C]iOP. , 



The pe.icli crop of t!)e Delaware and Maryland peninsula aggregates several million 

 baskets in a good season, and is the most important crop of this region. Until within a 

 few years the customary method of selling was for the growers to ship their fruit at 

 haphazard to Philadelphia. New York, Boston, and other large markets to be sold on 

 commission. The result was that freiiuently the markets were glutted and the prices 

 received did not cover the cost of transportation, baskets, and sellers" commission. 

 The prices were very uneven, there was great difficulty in getting sufficient cars, freight 

 rates were exorbitant, there was great loss in failure to return packages, and the profits 

 were largely consumetl by the commission merchants" charges. 



To remedy some of these abuses, the Delaware Fruit Exchange was organized with 

 a few hundred dollars" capital, which served to put up a small building at Wyoming. 

 Del., ui which fruit could be sold at auction, with the necessary accommodations for 

 clerks, telegraph operators, and other conveniences for transacting business. Before 

 the opening of the peach season a canvass was made of the principal markets through- 

 out the country, and the dealers in fresh fruits were invited to send buyers to the 

 Exchange. The idea of the Exchange was to have all the fruit that was brought to it 

 inspected and carefully graded, and then sold at auction to the highest bidder. 



It was proposed to extend the operation of the Exchange throughout the whole 

 Peninsula, by having a competent and sworn inspector at the different shipping points, 

 who should telegraph every morning, before the Exchange opened for business, the 

 number of cars of the different grades of peaches that would be for sale at his shipping 

 point. Havmg established confidence in the grade, this fruit at all these different 

 stations could be sold at auction on the Exchange without the buyer ever seeing it. 



The result was that for several seasons the Exchange worked quite satisfactorily. 

 The trade found it much better to send a man to buy such peaches as they desired, at 

 the i^oint where the peaches were collected, than to have the fruit shipped to their 

 market indiscriminately. All fruit was paid for on tlie spot as soon as sold, the 

 Exchange reserving one cent per liasket for its services and charging five dollars per 

 car for loading the fruit. The baskets were sold with the fruit. Communication by 

 wire \\ as kept up with all tlie principal markets, and the price of peaches was made at 

 Wyoming instead of in New York and other cities. There was always competition 

 among the buyers to secure the best fruit, which kept up prices. 



Most of the foriuer abuses of the peach marketing system were in this way over- 

 come. The farmer drove up to the Exchange with his peaches properly graded, had 

 them inspected and the grade guaranteed, a sample basket or two of each grade was 

 exposed at the auctioneer's stand, sold for \\fiat it would bring, and the lot immediately 

 loaded upon the cars. The money was paid to the Exchange upon the spot and turned 

 over to the farmer, less a commission of one cent per basket. The farmer thus had no 

 further trouble with freight rates, cars, commission merchants, or other evils of the old 

 system. The farmers also received a higher price for their fruit, not only because it 

 was better assorted than formerly, but because the buyers came from all parts of the ■ 

 country, and therefore distributed the jjeaches more widely tlian had previously been 

 the case. Thus gluts were avoided, and the fruit, being shipped direct to market by 

 the buyer, arrived there in better condition than under the previous state of affairs. 

 This is unquestionalily the correct principle for marketing the peach crop, and a 

 principle that can be applied with equal facility to any other crop that can be massed 

 in sufficiently large (juantities to attract buyers. But the Exchange has not been as 

 successful as had been hoped for various reasons, principally because many fruit- 

 growers would persist in selling to the assembled buyers outside of the Exchange. So 

 long as they could do this and save the commission of one cent per basket, these 

 growers considered it the proper thing to do, failing entirely to recognize the truth of 

 the fact that the success of the effort to attract all the principal buyers to one or two 

 points must depend upon the growers co-operating with sucli a medium as the 

 Exchange. 



Subsequently a somewhat different scheme of marketing was tried. The Fruit 



