so STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



have it, if necessary, incorporated, and have a president, a secretary, 

 a board of directors, and a treasurer, and charge each person so much 

 for joining, say fifty cents per year. Produce a little fund in this way. 

 Then I would have the board of directors agree on a business manager, 

 and have it understood that he should do business for all of us. Such 

 a man could go today to any basket factory and save you 25 per cent, 

 on your baskets. He could go to the factory, and say, "I have the buy- 

 ing of all the baskets for that vicinity,'' and if that factory would not 

 make it an object to him the next one would. You can save money on 

 your baskets. This business manager, with a committee, could go to the 

 railway company and say, "\Ye want such and such rates, to such a 

 place, and if you don't give it to us we will ship by boat." You would 

 not have to draw your peaches to open water more than two or three 

 weeks before the railway company would be down on their knees and 

 give you the rates wanted. (Applause.) We have tried it, and we know. 

 Then I would have the business manager, when the proper time came 

 for strawberries and other small fruits, telegraph around to different 

 places. If I had only five dollars' worth of strawberries, and I wanted 

 to find the best market and I had to telegraph forty or fifty places and 

 pay six dollars for telegraphing, I would not make much. But if I had 

 a hundred men to telegraph for, it would not cost each one more than 

 four or five cents, and all would know just where the market was. Here 

 is another point: the business manager can go to Chicago, Detroit, 

 Lafayette, to any commission man, and say, "I control all the peaches 

 around Hart and Shelby and Mears. They will be shipped to the person 

 I suggest, and we will pay you five per cent, commission and no more. 

 We are going to have a man around here, occasionally, that you don't 

 know, to see how you sell our fruit." If that man would not sell for 

 five per cent, commission, I guarantee that the next man would, and as 

 soon as they find out the power the manager has, the commission men 

 will all be down on their knees, and they will do this work cheap. There 

 is no doubt of that. Then I would have every man put his name on his 

 basket, and nothing else. Just his name and address. I would have 

 this business manager say to these commission men, ''When that fruit 

 comes, check it up and see if it agrees with the receipt, and you take 

 out one tenth of one per cent., or one mill, per basket, and send that to 

 the treasurer of this society. Then take out 3'our commission, and send 

 the balance of the money to each party, according to the number of 

 baskets he had. In that way, with the exception of the fifty cents entry 

 fee, if one man had one hundred baskets, and another man 1.000, they 

 would all pay pro rata. This money would go to the tr(nisui('r. and 

 whatever you wanted to do in the way of telegraphing oi- siMiding to 

 places to see how your fruit was being handled, you would have the 

 money to do it with. I have an idea if you start this in that way, and 

 do it once, you will not only make money, but you will soon drive the 

 commission men to send their men right here on our streets to buy our 

 peaches, as we want them to; and when you don't want your organization 

 any more, you can drop it. I don't believe there is any way of compelling 

 them to come here and pay us for our peaches on the spot, so long as 

 we send them there and let them dole out to us what thev see fit. Besides 



