RECORD OF A JOINT MEETING. 7 



Southern perishable fruits find a ready market throughout the north, before 

 our fruits mature, while the inter-state and other cooperative distributing 

 agencies are supplying cities outside of Chicago with car loads of fruit direct 

 from the growers. 



The "Chautauqua Grape Growers Union" grade and pool the crop and ship 

 to every town where a car of grapes can be distributed, procuring extremely 

 low freight rates and the cheapest commissions. Although but five per cent 

 is charged for selling perishable fruits in the great eastern cities, the old 

 system of consignment by growers is being almost entirely superceded in the 

 celebrated fruit growing districts on the Delaware and Maryland peninsula. 

 A system of fruit exchanges has been established at all of the large shipping 

 points, where the fruit is sold at auction to dealers from the large cities. 

 The fruit exchange is supplemented by the "bureau of information and dis- 

 tribution," which has already made arrangements to ship train loads of. 

 peaches to Chicago, and car-loads to other large cities in the northwest. 



HOW SALES ARE MADE IN DELAWARE AND MARYLAND. 



In illustration of the Delaware and Maryland system, I will quote here arp 

 editorial from The Farm and Home of Wilmington, Delaware, published 

 May 31, 1888: 



As time elapses, the prospect for a full crop of peaches increases rather 

 than diminishes, and only an unparalleled "June drop" can prevent an 

 enormous yield. With this prospect before them the growers should lose no' 

 time in making all possible arrangements to market the crop at a profit. The 

 object to be accomplished is to secure the wide and rapid distribution of the 

 fruit. There are twenty millions of people within reach of the peach orch- 

 ards of Delaware and Mayland, to say nothing of the much larger number 

 that may be reached by canned and evaporated fruit. There is, therefore, 

 no need of having this crop waste in the orchard nor be shipped at a loss to 

 the growers if all these twenty millions of people can be reached every day in 

 the week. The fruit exchange is taking active measures to secure buyers 

 from all markets, and will, in a large measure, be successful. The bureau of 

 information and distribution, which has been so carefully and thoroughly 

 planned by Mr. Polk, will come in to distribute that which is not bought on 

 the Peninsula. To encourage commission merchants to come here, those 

 who buy for their own houses and pay cash will be given the first choice of 

 their own market, and hence can practically control shipments to that market. 

 Mr. Polk has a long list of towns lying along the main arteries of travel and 

 in the interior of most of the eastern states, which can be reached by direct 

 shipments. Heretofore these towns have been supplied from Philadelphia 

 and New York. The fruit has been consigned to those cities and reshipped 

 the following day by express, but by direct shipments, both time and expense 

 will be.saved, and this saving will be sufficient to enable the smaller towns to 

 have a constant supply at very moderate prices. By thus extending the 

 market, gluts will be avoided and equable but not exorbitant prices will be 

 maintained. Fruit growers should therefore no longer delay, but should at 

 once become members of the bureau and stockholders in the exchange. They 

 should organize for the protection of their own industry and not be content 

 to remain longer at the mercy of the men engaged in other pursuits, all of 

 whom have strong organizations for mutual advantage and protection. 



