98 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the foreign price if he buys fruit at home. There are people all about 

 us who would like to use the fruit if they could obtain it reasonably. 

 The grower says, " Here are my returns." But what does that include? 

 The cost of the basket, packing, marketing, etc., almost half of the total 

 cost. Kow, with us, we have very largely increased the home consump- 

 tion, because a few people were willing to sell fruit without all of this 

 work, and give the buyers at home the benefit of it. We encourage the 

 farmers around the country to come in and buy, and some people have 

 taken it up as a business, and run wagons around the country. They go 

 down into the fruit sections and back again into the farming country. 



Grand Rapids is taking the lead in this matter of shipping out to other 

 states. In connection with that, I desire to state the fact that they are 

 doing away with a lot of the dressing and fussing that costs so much. 

 They are shipping in open bushel baskets. For years that has been done 

 in the east, but you know how careful we have been to cover the fruit 

 with tarletan, etc. In Grand Rapids they have induced the railroad 

 companies to shelve their cars, so that a large share of the fruit goes 

 just as it is packed in the orchard. Just see the advantage in the economy 

 of shipping in that way. This very year we disposed of about G00,000 

 baskets in that way, in our own town. The only misfortune was that 

 we had to send them out in fifth baskets, and much time and expense 

 were lost in that way. 



Being interested in a bank, I have a chance to look over the checks, 

 and I believe the shipping to so many different men is a misfortune. We 

 have men in our own community who are not large growers, who during 

 a season will ship to a dozen or fifteen different men. Now, that is 

 perfectly suicidal. The fact remains that there are some honorable men 

 in the commission business. The understanding between the fruitgrower 

 and the commission man ought to be as perfect as it is possible to make 

 it — as much so as if they were partners in a local business. 



Some years we must depend more or less upon the Chicago market, 

 and the thing to do, for those who are shipping to Chicago, is to settle 

 upon the man there who seems most satisfactory, and then, if possible, 

 induce that man to come over to your place about picking time, take 

 him to the orchard, and let him see how' you are raising fruit; let him 

 go into your packing shed, make him just as familiar as possible with 

 your ways and methods of handling. Then go over there and visit him, 

 and just in proportion that you can establish the relationship with your 

 commission man that President Morrill and others have maintained, who 

 have always confined themselves to one man — if you will follow this 

 advice, which is not a matter of guesswork but of ten or fifteen years' 

 observation, you will find that you will gradually increase your profits 

 in consigning to Chicago, and have a good deal less complaint to make 

 about the commission man. 



