128 State Horticultural Society. 



and they have a regular business system. The Southern CaHfornia Fruit 

 Exchange started out in a small way at first. It is a matter of political 

 economy that the fastest means of distribution is the best. You can't 

 afford to wait for a buyer to come to you to buy from you. We want to 

 reach the different systems of the country simultaneously. We want to 

 be able to market our peaches and apples at once and we can from the 

 fact that the railroads are willing to join such an organization that will 

 ship the fastest and safest. We could sell through agents, as the Cali- 

 fornia Fruit Exchange does. They found that they did not always get 

 their returns. Sometimes a car would be turned down. Now they pre- 

 vent this by having the agent to be there and receive the fruit. We 

 could reach the small towns through the agent plan. We would want 

 to make as many car load towns as possible. The only way we could 

 manage this right is to have agents to receive the fruit all along the 

 line. They could leave a part of a car here and then take some more on. 

 to the next place, and so on. You would thus increase 3^our car load 

 towns three fold. What we want is to get markets. And I am sure 

 they can be reached in this way. Of course we must have our system 

 work hand in hand with the railroad people. 



Mr. Evans. — Mr. .Gardner's system of fruit distribution is a very- 

 nice one. But we want to go higher than that. I don't think there is 

 a member of this Society or any fruit association but what can sell on the 

 track at their own station. They may say we are subject to the buyer's 

 proposition, but I don't agree with you there. Experience doesn't teach 

 me so. Now we have had experience with strawberries and I know we 

 got our prices for them. They came to us for them. We have a sec- 

 retary who is in constant correspondence and who is posted as to the 

 best prices every morning. He tells us what the market will bear and 

 we sell for that. It used to be thought silly to think of selling fruit on 

 the track. So did they used to think it not wise to sell cattle or hogs or 

 sheep on the track. But we do it. We can make them come to it and 

 make them give our price. I say let's sell on the track. 



Mr. Wilmeroth. — I agree with Mr. Evans. I am a buyer, too. I 

 think the California Fruit Exchange can sell on the track, too. One thing 

 we need is better packing. We haven't very good packing now. 



Secretary Goodman. — Yes, that is a fact. We need better packing 

 among our fruit growers. 



Mr. Nelson. — Packing apples in ^Missouri is a little neglected. I 

 have been buying apples for the last 14 or 15 years and have only one or 

 two first-class crops of packing done by the grower. But I can say 

 that todav we have some good trained packers. It has been hard work 

 to educate those men to it. We don't have to send to New York to get 



