44 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



entire top of the crate with a sheet of wax paper before putting on the 

 lift. The extra work in grading the fruit, packing it attractively 

 together witli the sheet of wax paper, which ma.v be cut to ])roper size 

 by the wholesale paper house before shipi)ing. will cost but a very few 

 cents per crate, and the difference in ])rice over and above berries 

 which are not handled in Ihis manner will be about -fl.OO per crate; at 

 least that was my experience. 



MARKETING. 



T have saved the hardest until the last, and when I try to tell the 

 other fellow how to market fruit I realize that T am up against a hard 

 l^roposition, and so all that I can do is to give my own experience, 

 which proved entirely satisfactory. 



When I began growing strawberries, as I .said in the beginning, T 

 knew but little about the growing of the fruit and less about marketing 

 it, and so I began by getting the best grocer in each nearby town to 

 handle my berries exclusively. I arranged with them to sell the berries 

 at the best price they could get and I would pay the express and allow 

 them 10% for their trouble. Everything worked out lovely until the 

 market became overstocked with berries, and then the trouble began. 

 Invariably these grocers put my fancy berries down on the level with 

 berries which were not worth one-half as much as mine. 



After two or three years of this kind of experience, I woke up to 

 fhe fact that no one could intelligently put the price on strawberries 

 Ihat I had grown, because no one but myself knew what it cost to pro- 

 duce such berries. 



The next season before berries were ripe, I wrote a letter to each of 

 my dealers stating that from this time on Beatty would name the price, 

 and that the price this year would be 15c per quart, two quarts for a 

 quarter; and that price would prevail throughout the entire season. 

 T stated further that I would pay the express and, instead of allowing 

 them 10%, would give them 15% profit; and I am pleased to say that 

 every dealer replied that they would accept my proposition and Avould 

 do the very best they could to get the price I named for my fruit. The 

 berries ripened; the battle began, and O dear! O my! everything went 

 just fine until the market became glutted. Some dealers just kept on ask- 

 ing the price and they got it, while other dealers weakened, and they would 

 wire me and write me that it was an impossibility to sell my berries at 

 15c per quart, two quarts for a quarter when other berries were selling 

 for from 6 to 8 and 10 cents. 



It took some courage for me to wire back: "Get my price or I will 

 discontinue shipping berries to you," but I wired them that way just 

 the same. Lose or make, I would have my price. Instead of discourag- 

 ing thosie weak-kneed dealers, it stiffened their spinal columns and they 

 tried all the harder, and soon they found that it was just as easy to sell 

 fancy berries at 15c per quart as it was to sell the poorly picked and 

 poorly packed berries at G to 8 cents per quart. 



The next year was a bad one for the strawberry grower, but fortun- 

 ately for me, I had taken especially good care of my fields and had r, 

 splendid crop. I then saw my chance to raise the price, which resulted 

 in another letter to each of my dealers stating that my strawberries 



