PROCEEDINGS OF KINDRED SOCIETIES. 277 



have an organization to control the shipments. In Delaware they had 

 such an organization and we also had one at Benton Harbor, but some who 

 stayed outside of the exchange, to save the one cent commission, finally 

 broke it up by their sheer selfishness; but this was finally a damage even 

 to the outsiders. We are doing missionary work and we find it hard to 

 make people honest by that means. We know those people are dishonest 

 over there, and they think we are dishonest over here, and so it goes until 

 we have some practical way out of it. 



J. C. Gould : Some commission men keep "snide" packages and 

 repack the fruit we send them. Now, we have a fruitgrowers' organization 

 at Lawton. The members are intelligent and honest and they demanded 

 last fall that the buyers come to us and buy our fruit and they came. 

 They even went to meet the fruitsellers out of town, so anxious were they 

 to buy of them. 



D. W. HiNMAN: I find the complaints come from men who pack dis- 

 honestly and then blame those who are honest and get more for their fruit, 

 I think the time spent in thinning pays, and if the trees are properly 

 thinned we shall have little poor fruit. 



J. Gr. Ramsdell: I have had some experience in "snide" packages. 

 In filling orders I have had to buy some peaches of friends whom I 

 thought reliable. I got some that looked all right on top, but in the 

 bottom were some that would make a pig squeal. But in packing fruit 

 honestly, Mr. Smith says he sees no way except to compel people to be 

 honest. I, at South Haven, with others, tried to get up an organization 

 requiring the members to put their names on the package guaranteeing the 

 fruit, and out of the seventy-five or eighty fruitgrowers we could get only 

 fifteen to enter into such an organization. If we could get packers to put 

 their names on the package, as a guaranty of quality, the fruit would be 

 as sure and stable as flour, and it would sell for a full price. 



R. Morrill: I think it is not policy to smooth this matter over. It is 

 for our credit and profit to keep working at this business until we can 

 work a reformation. In regard to repacking in Chicago, it is thought to 

 be discreditable, and all the larger dealers will have nothing to do with it. 

 There is a necessity for organization among fruitgrowers. We at Benton 

 Harbor had once a spasm of honesty, and forty-five men agreed to use 

 standard packages. But not all filled the agreement, and it fell through. 

 Lawton grapes were good, and they have not been in the business long 

 enough to be spoiled yet; but if they follow precedent they will soon come 

 to it. I do not think our fruit-men realize how much fruit could be used 

 if all our fruit was standard. There is a demand for second-grade, but this 

 can be standard. Each has its place. If not standard there is an element 

 of uncertainty. One man says he has had no trouble with commission 

 men, and I will wager that it began with himself sending perfect fruit. 

 Now when you find men who are saying all commission men are thieves, 

 you may depend that the fault is at home. 



At the morning session of Dec. 18, reports of secretary and treasurer, 

 and of the committee on president's message, were read. The latter 

 precipitated a debate as to the meaning of one clause which appeared to 

 favor an allotment of space for the use of this society, in which all the 

 speakers took the ground that it must be purely a Michigan exhibit and 

 not for any particular society. On motion, the clauses of the report 

 referring to it were stricken out and the report adopted as amended. 



E. C. Reid moved that two members of this society be selected to act 



