FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 275 



HOW NOT TO DO IT. 



I recollect an instance in this State where a good, strong company was 

 formed and incorporated under the law, and forty-five good men along 

 the Lake Shore agreed to do business straight for one year. The first 

 meeting they had it was resolved that they use a uniform quart, full dry 

 quart, for their small fruit. Forty-five men signed their names to that 

 agreement, giving number of cubic inches, everything right, and it 

 seemed to be a real honest spasm they had ; a manufacturer made 10,000 

 packages and just two men took out of those packages for two years. 

 That same organization sent a committee to a steamboat company — there 

 was competition in steamboating at that time — and said "The president 

 of this company would like to make arrangement for the reduction of 

 freights, and we c^n deliver you a good lot of goods (they had the names 

 of about seventy men) for the balance of the season." They had a pretty 

 nice list made out. The steamboat man asked what rate he ought to 

 give, and said, "If I guarantee you that rate, will you guarantee me that 

 fruit?" He made that right, but he told them the rate would be for 

 everybody ; he said, "You represent the fruit growing interest of this sec- 

 tion, you have the best men in it, and you ought to let other men share in 

 it." The rate was made. A competing steamboat made it one better, 

 and the chairman of that committee hauled his fruit to that competing 

 steamboat and hauled it there for the rest of the season. If there was a 

 band of thieves in this town they would combine until they had picked 

 you of everything they could carry off, but they would be true to one 

 another as long as there was a dollar in sight. And here is a lot of 

 respectable farmers, men that are as honest as most men today — men 

 that mean to do right, and they go into a scheme of that character and 

 agree to do these things; why can not they hold together as well as a 

 band of thieves? It is a fact we can not, and there is something wrong 

 in it. Now, is it in our training, or in our isolated methods of doing busi- 

 ness? I do not know, but I know this, if good shrewd business men join 

 together they usually hang together until they have given the thing a fair 

 trial ; and it seems to me that for the small fruit grower it is the only way 

 out. When a man puts up an article not just as he would like to buy it, 

 I believe he knows what he is doing every time, and I believe 

 it is the best indicator to a man of what, he should do; but when 

 a man puts up something just as he would not like to buy it, he is paving 

 his way to go down with a mass who must be trampled out if this 

 increase production of fruit goes on. We see it gradually going down a 

 little tighter and tighter, but the best man stays on top. You may say 

 what you please about him, but you will generally find he is looking out 

 for the other fellow's money by fair means. He is studying to obtain 

 that man's money by increasing his desire for his particular fruit. 



YOU CAN'T MARKET POOR FRUIT. 



Now, I can not tell any man how to market poor fruit successfully, 

 except that there be nothing else in sight and only a limited amount of it. 

 Now, we know there is always enough of it. I do not think that any man 



