46 STATE HORTlCULTUiRAL SOCIETY. 



it costs to market this fruit. I took these figures I am giving you here 

 from memory. I find that when I come to the final result I think I 

 am about four dollars off. Last fall I had 160 barrels of Kieffer pears. 

 At the time I picked them they were very dull and it was almost im- 

 possible to sell them; I don't think I could have gotten over thirty cents 

 a bushel for them in our section. I thought that was pretty cheap and 

 I took my chances. I barreled them up and sent them to Rochester. 

 They laid there until along in November, and 1 saw the pear market in 

 New York was im|)roving and notified our commission man that we used 

 there that I had a car of pears and any time he thought the market was 

 in good condition for it to wire me and I would order them out. In a 

 short time he did so, and the car went to New York. Now that car was 

 packed in two grades, and sold on tlie Barclay Street dock for |450. 

 Now I wanted to know just how much more money I got out of those 

 Kiefi'er pears than I would have had if I sold them in the fall. The 

 freight was |43.20 from Brighton cold storage to New York — fifteen 

 cents per cwt. The commission was |45 — ten per cent. I am taking this 

 from memory and it may have been seven per cent. All barrels had to 

 be opened, and a cushion was put on them. It cost flG.OO to prepare 

 these barrels, or about 10 cents per barrel including broken hoops. The 

 cold storage charge was 25 cents per barrel or .f40.00. Freight from 

 Sodus to Brighton is seven cents per cwt. and cost about twenty dollars. 

 None of these charges are high. Case & Company do the marketing and 

 they have ten per cent of the products of my farm, which is credited 

 to Case & Co. The barrels cost 150.00. Now if I have carried these 

 figures through right, the car of Kieffer pears that sold for .|450 in New 

 York by the time it got back to me got down to |220, and none of the 

 charges were exorbitant. I made $75 or $80 by holding. 



If I can offer any suggestions that will help yon in marketing, I am 

 glad to do so. I can give you my plan. I am on the south shore of 

 Lake Ontario, in a little town of fifteen hundred in a large fruit sec- 

 tion. I conceived the idea of getting just as close to the consumer as I 

 could many years ago. We have five or six counties north of us that 

 don't grow much fruit — a few strawberries and a feAV red raspberries; 

 a few apples of the early varieties. I make a trip up there and call 

 on the grocery men who are handling the fruit and take their orders. 

 I commenced that in 18SG. I give them a quotation, after I get going, 

 every Friday; I put on a postal card the quotations for the next week, 

 keeping them thoroughly posted in regard to the fruit coming on the 

 next week. They get these quotations Saturday morning, and before the 

 time of shipment Mcniday we most ahvays have plenty of daily orders. 

 We carried that on until about five years ago, when the American Ex- 

 press Co. would not give us service. I found it almost impossible to 

 deliver a crate of red rasi)berries or a crate of peaches into the northern 

 part of the state in salable condition, so the groceryman could sell that 

 fruit without a loss. We came, after working up that trade all those 

 years, very nearly throwing the whole thing u]) and going to the big 

 cities. Then we found in Watertown a couple of young fellows had 

 started a fruit commission business and were supplying that country. I 

 knew one of them, and the other one was from Elmira. We turned this 

 business over to these young fellows with the reputation we had been 

 years in getting. Then we commenced shipping by freight in carload 

 lots. There was a through freight train going through, that is not sup- 



