STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 1 25 



except in probably five per cent of the trade, it never will be the 

 case, because it costs more to ship in small lots, and, as I say, the 

 people want the service and they don't want to trade with an 

 individual producer. 



I had a letter of inquiry from one of your good farmers 

 down here — several letters have passed in the correspondence — 

 in which he wanted to know the name of some good retail 

 concern which would buy 400 barrels of nice apples — he showed 

 me testimonials. He thought if he could get in connection with 

 these retail stores that he could sell those apples, get the com- 

 mission man's profit, and he could make some money, and that 

 was the wiy to do business. I wrote him that I didn't think 

 he could do it that way and get so much money out of it. 

 I advised him to get in touch with some good wholesale com- 

 mission man. He wrote back and said he thought I was hired 

 by those commission men, and he still wanted to get at the retail 

 stores. I tried to explain to that man. I said, "The retail 

 store fellow does not want to trade with you." He could 

 not understand me. Why does not the retail store men want 

 to trade direct with the producer? Remember this retail store 

 fellow who owns this corner store, who leases it, is in busi- 

 ness to make the most he can for the fifty-two weeks in the year. 

 That is what he is studying to do. Apples are simply an incident 

 to his business. He handles them because his trade calls for them, 

 but there is not considered to be as much profit on apples as on 

 other things, because, sometimes they don't grade out as he buys 

 them, and a good many times they keep picking them over 

 and they don't bring so much money. He has no place to store 

 more than four or five barrels anyway ; he has no money to put 

 into those apples, and he has no time to go into the market dis- 

 trict and find out who are the shippers and get the apples drayed 

 across town. So he arranges with the commission man who 

 supplies him the apples just when he wants them, the number 

 that he wants, extends him credit at certain times, and does not 

 require him to furnish storage for those apples, but keeps him 

 supplied from week to week. That is why the average retailer 

 does not want to trade with the producer because he has no time 

 to look up the means of transportation, getting the apples down 

 there, and the majority do not want to buy so many at a time. 

 The restaurants sometimes buy apples and put them in storage 

 but the great majority simply buy three days at a time. 



