No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 461 



and wanted to buy my apples. He told me how cheap they were 

 buying down along the Hudson. I said to him, you paid Van Alstiue 

 a good price. He looked surprised. I said. "If you had not put on 

 that six cents per barrel extra you would not have bought them."' 

 He said, "How do you know all this?" I said, ''By being a member 

 of the N. Y. S. F. G. A." 



The Association also has made money for its members by the 

 purchase of chemicals. But purchasing in carload lots, we were 

 able to get reduced prices, which saved many dollars in the aggre- 

 gate. In the fertilizer trade, we have had some j-ears of success 

 and some of failure. When we were able to get an early contract 

 with some reliable company, we saved the members |2.00 per ton 

 and sold as high as fifteen hundred tons, but we found it difficult 

 to always get a contract. The Executive Committee would arrange 

 to meet some agent who would give us figures, but there was always 

 something that had to be submitted to the company which would 

 cause delay, and one excuse would follow another, until by the 

 time a contract was completed and signed it was so late in the 

 season that the different agents working for the companies that were 

 in the combine had covered their territory and sold to many mem- 

 bers, and where a member was known as such they would make a 

 special rate to him as cheap as we could sell; in that way would try 

 and discredit the organization. Even some members of the Execu- 

 tive Committee were caught in this way. While I was President, I 

 wa^ approached by an agent and_ offered a car of fertilizer at a 

 price much below the price put out by the Association for the sam;' 

 class of goods. Had I made the purchase they would have used it 

 to their advantage. Finally we made a contract with a firm that 

 was outside of the combine, which worked much more satisfactory 

 for two years than any theretofore. The third year the State analy- 

 sis showed the goods slightly deficient in some of the ingr<^dients. 

 The combine then secured all the station bulletins they could get. 

 and sent a few to each agent who took particular pains to show the 

 members of the Association wherein they had been cheated by the 

 organization. The year that followed our sales dropped down to 

 150 tons and that is where we stand to-day. 



In the matter of co-operative packing and sales, we have not 

 yet been able to agree on anv definite nlan. One of the difficulties 

 in forming a stock company, is for a body of men assembled together 

 to agree on a man to manage the business, and have that man a safe, 

 conservative man. Any large body of men cannot, as a rule, agree 

 on a safe, conservative leader, and before I put money into a stock 

 company, I want to know who the manager is to be. We all know 

 in almost any organization, that to take away the right of election 

 of officers from the whoh^ body of the organization and ]>lace it in 

 the hands of a nominating committee, there is often trouble, and yet 

 the only safe way to place officers in nomination is through a com- 

 mittee. I have come to belTeve the only way to start at least in co- 

 operative packing and marketing is through a local packing house. 

 Take for instance, ten men who each grow, say from five to eight 

 hundred or a thousand barrels of apples, let them form themselves 

 into a company, rent a storage of sufficient capacity, elect their 



