No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 559 



Apples are now sent 3,000 miles from California to find a profitable 

 market. Teaches and plums are brought all the way from South 

 Africa. In thousands of neighborhoods where, when we were boys, 

 meat supplies came from local farms, there is not even a slaughter 

 house. Butchers are only meat cutters. The same distribution of 

 vegetables and fruit is made from large growing centers, and this 

 cuts into the local trade. I remember the time when demand and 

 supply regulated the price of potatoes. If the American supply ran 

 short there was no limit to the price. Twenty years ago I lived in a 

 boarding house in Brooklyn, N. Y. It was a short potato year and 

 the price went to $5.00 a barrel. I know that our landlady stopped 

 buying at $4.00 and gave us boiled rice and corn meal instead of 

 potatoes. Now, when the price reaches $2.75 the fact is at once 

 known all over the world, and potatoes in Germany and Belgium may 

 be taken from the alcohol factory and sent here for eating. They are 

 good potatoes and have found their way into markets a hundred miles 

 back from the sea shore. I speak of this to show how in many cases, 

 what we call, our local markets have been taken away from us. This 

 has discouraged some of our small growers, who think their business 

 is being stamped out by the large concerns. I don't find this so in 

 our country. The big grower can't get down to the retail customers 

 as well as the small grower can. The more hands a package of fruit 

 passes through the more the buyer will distrust it. The big man 

 cannot give personal attention to every package, while the small 

 grower can, and every year we are developing a more discriminating 

 class of customers — they want the best. My experience is that while 

 the present liood of fruit and vegetables will make it harder to sell 

 ordinary goods in the local market, on the other hand it makes it 

 possible to sell first class goods to better advantage. I find that 

 customers like to see the bottom of the package and they like to be 

 able to hold some one directly responsible. I do not fear the finest 

 Georgia peaches or Delaware strawberries when 1 can pick my fruit 

 after it has ripened on the tree and get it to the customer at once. I 

 find more and more people who realize that the distant fruit has 

 ripened in the car and they can be made to realize the difference. 

 The one exception that I know of to this rule is the sale of California 

 apples. As these come neatly packed and uniform in size and color 

 they take our best trade. We must realize that the Californiau 

 growers would be ruined if they were to send fruit as carelessly 

 packed as much that comes from nearby growers. At the same time 

 it is true that many of our Eastern apples are just as good as the 

 California fruit. The latter is packed by experts, who go from farm 

 to farm, packing the boxes for shipment and putting the names on 

 each box. A small grower must pack his fruit properly and stand 

 by his name, that is the best asset he can have. In the old times 

 when local trading was the rule a man went into a grocery store and 

 bought five pounds of coffee. The grocer brought him the package 

 and the man grew suspicious. He opened it before the crowd and 

 found inside a si one weighing 15 ounces. lie held it up before the 

 crowd and the grocer put on his spectacles and looked at it carefully. 

 "Why, yes;" he said, ''I remember that, I found it in the last tub of 

 butter you sold me and I thought I would send it back to you." In 

 those days that sort of thing would not lose trade, but nowadays one 

 of your customers finding inferior goods in his package cannot get 



