382 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



prices — that accomplishment most important of all — turning 

 into cash the results of great care, hard toil and considerable 

 expense? Here is where many co-operative fruit growers' 

 organizations, though they may closely follow the ideal in several 



— I 



respects, widely diverge as to marketing methods. 



Let us review some of the methods in vogue with existing 

 co-operative organizations in various producing districts of 

 the country. Among them we find: 



1. The consignment plan, whereby goods are consigned 

 without control direct to commission merchants with rebates 

 on the receiver's commission that tend to maintain the shipping 

 association. With limited tonnage and selections of thoroughly 

 dependable agencies this plan has some advantages. 



2. Contract distribution by commission merchants who 

 undertake disposal of entire crops, but who, because of recip- 

 rocal obligations among commission merchants of other markets, 

 must necessarily reconsign at additional commissions, rather 

 than effect outright sale to these dealers of a large portion of 

 the products handled. 



3. The district marketing by the association managers by 

 means of telegraphic and telephonic communication with car-lot 

 buyers, a system conducted with some degree of success where 

 the tonnage is limited and adjacent to important consuming 

 centers. 



4. The employment of resident brokers among the markets 

 open to the association, these agents being generally satisfactory 

 where not dependent for a livelihood upon the good will of the 

 trade and disposed sometimes to favor unscrupulous buyers at 

 the expense of the shipping account. 



5. The temporary employment for short-time periods of 

 local men selected from among the fruit growing communities 

 and dispatched to the marketing centers to conduct car-lot 

 sales to wholesale dealers. It must be obvious that generally 

 these men, lacking trained salesmanship, experience, knowledge 

 of local trade conditions and familiarity with "tricks of the 

 trade," are, and of necessity must be, at considerable dis- 

 advantage in their selling operations. 



6. The state-wide exchange plan contemplates concentra- 

 tion of selling efTorts on the part of allied shipping organizations 

 within the State through a central exchange or clearing house, 

 thus by a combined tonnage securing the benefits of economy 



