146 STATE HORTICULTUIIAL SOCIETY. 



ff 



Organization, too, will help us on the transportation question. If you 

 have stuff enough to do business with the railway people you can go to 

 any company and get fair rates. On some lines they have a minimum 

 rate, now, of 200 bushels of peaches. An organization has secured that, 

 no individual could, and it gives them a chance to make smaller shipments 

 to these points than they could do by schedule. Much has been accom- 

 plished in that way, and can be here, and the markets will come to you, 

 to a great deal larger exten^ if you get this idea of uniform package and 

 uniform packing thoroughly instilled into the minds of enough people 

 so they can come here and do business. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Rood: Mr. Morrill's ideas, as usual, are quite to the point. We 

 have altogether too easy ways of selling our fruit. I pack my fruit and 

 put the cover on, and put it on the dock, and it is done. The result is, 

 that our selling ability withers, as a man's arm would if he put it into a 

 sling. We are not sellers. I am in favor of the idea of organization, but 

 there are difficulties in the way I can not see through. Some time ago, I 

 was talking to my brother in Chicago, and explaining some matters in 

 our business. We talked in a vague way of co-operation, but the difficulty 

 is to find the man to head it. We have had organizations, and there is 

 usually some one out of a job who is willing to head the organization, 

 but some man who is not qualified to do it. If we could get some man who 

 could and would take care of our crop, we could combine, but that 

 difficulty has always been too great for us to overcome. I feel the force 

 of what has been said. It won't do to dump the entire fruit crop into 

 Chicago this year, but I don't know what else to do, even though I know 

 that means suicide. Now, if there is any way out, we want it. I am 

 ready to do anything in reason to form an organization which will help 

 to better this matter. I am heartily in favor of seeing the package- 

 marking law enforced, and we can enforce it by refusing to buy of firms 

 which do not comply with the law. 



Mr. Stevens: Why wouldn't the plan adopted in Grand Rapids be 

 beneficial to the people in St. Joseph and Benton Harbor? Why can not 

 you encourage the buyers to come here? We believe that through the 

 organization in Grand Rapids w-e increased the number of buyers at our 

 markets last year to quite a large extent. I know of several instances of 

 buyers who stayed right there and bought fruit, who never appeared on 

 the market before. I sold peaches all one w^eek to a man who had never 

 appeared on the market before. He bought my peaches in the morning 

 and another load for the afternoon. I got my check for the two loads 

 every day. That was done, I think, through the organization of the 

 fruitgrowers' association, by encouraging the buyers to go there and look 

 at the fruit before it was packed. I don't know why that system could 

 not be adopted here. We have these buyers come to us, and if we don't 

 wish to sell to one we sell to the other. I know, in my own case, I had a 

 load and I was offered a certain price; and I said, ''No, I want more 

 money." " Well, we can't give it." I hung on to my load awhile. The 



