FORTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT. 45 



that year would be seventeen and one-half cents a quart, two quarts for 

 thirty-five cents. My dealers stood for the raise and got it. 



It seems to me that it is an imposition on the fruit grower for grocers 

 or commission men to expect to name the price on something concerning 

 which they know nothing about the cost of raising. 



This reminds me of an experience I had with a gentleman in a depot 

 while waiting for a train. This gentleman was well-dressed and had the 

 appearance of being intelligent, and I believe he was. I was reading 

 the Saturday Evening Post. I turned a page or two and came to a double 

 page advertisement of an automobile. I said to the gentleman by my 

 side: ''How much do you think this advertisement cost?" He studied very 

 carefully and gave me the impression that he was trying hard to guess 

 the cost of that advertisement just as closely as possible, and I am sure 

 he did try. Finally, after he had nibbed his head for a time, he replied : 

 "Fifty cents." "You have hit it very close," I said. This double-page 

 advertisement cost the manufacturer of that automobile just Ten 

 Thousand Dollars." I wonder how the publishers of the Saturday 

 Evening Post would like to have that fellow name the price on their 

 advertising, but no doubt he was just about as well posted on the cost 

 of advertising as many dealer-s who handle our fruit are posted in the 

 cost of production of the fruit he is selling. 



Friend Fruit-grower, let us wake up to the fact that we must take 

 our own part. Let us grow a class of fruit and pack it in a manner 

 that will attract the buyer, then we may conscientiously name a price 

 that will give us a profit for our labor. Let us refuse to allow grocers 

 and commission dealers to control our prices. So long as we allow those 

 Avho sell our fruit to name the selling price, just so long we are going to 

 work for the fun there is in it. My dealers have often told me that 

 the advertisement that came through my strawberries which were so 

 nicely packed, was worth more to them than the profit they made from * 

 the sales; and this one statement alone convinced me that if the dealer 

 was getting an advertisement as well as a profit out of my berries, it 

 was only natural for that dealer to sell my berries just as cheaply as 

 possible, which would naturally give him all the better advertisement. 

 Fancy berries when sold as cheaply as common berries, would certainly 

 draw trade. 



In closing, let me repeat that dealers, both retail and wholesale, 

 want the best fruit that is grown, and they will not turn us down just 

 because we protect our rights in demanding that we name the price 

 for that which we produce. 



LEGISLATION. 



HON. J. J. JAKWAY^ BENTON HARBOR. 



My text can be found in the Saturday Evening Post of January, 

 1913. It is from the sayings of Mr. Crissey, a versatile writer on 

 creative business, and is as follows: "The whole round of a fruit- 

 growers' existence is a running fight with his enemies seen and unseen, 

 and every profitable crop is a victor's conquest." 



It is neither strange nor unusual that Agriculture, an industry so 



