276 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



can always have the best, but if he has done his work well, he ought to 

 have some pretty good fruit, and most of us can have it much better than 

 we do; but he can put it up so that it is just as it appears to be. Now, if 

 there is no deception, the buyer is satisfied because it is as he thinks it is. 

 The money is of less account to them than the fine fruit is, and they will 

 pay for it. But that is by no means the largest trade of the city. There 

 is another class that wants a fairly good fruit that their purse can reach. 

 If they buy fruit that is as good clear down through as it is on top, they 

 are pretty well satisfied and will feed their appetite as long as it lasts. 

 There is a feeling in all of us against being swindled, and we despise the 

 man who swindles us. Men will argue that a little gain on one basket 

 amounts to a good deal on ten thousand ; that they cannot afford to throw 

 away the inferior fruit; that buyers say they expect the best to be on top; 

 but who is responsible for that expectation? They have come to expect 

 it, and to find a man who does not they will go a good ways sometimes. 

 The peach trade has become an enormous one, and unfortunately it is not 

 being well distributed, nearly as well as it should be. Many are over-sup- 

 plied while many are not supplied. You ship to many points east; you 

 have made a start in the right direction ; there are points south and east, 

 not yet supplied. Every car load relieved the western market just that 

 much. Grand Rapids shipped from five to eighteen thousand bushels 

 a day during the season and they almost always went to places out of our 

 own market. They secured good facilities so that they are giving uni- 

 form service everywhere. Those people pick in bushel baskets, haul them 

 to the car and take their money and go home. The buyers attend to the 

 distributing. The baskets are uncovered and you can look them over, 

 and they are picked as they run off of the tree; there is no packing house 

 work with it, and they are handled in just that manner; but certain grow- 

 ers could not resist the temptation to get the little fellows in the bottom, 

 though the majority of them did much better. But they do not anywhere 

 nearly supply the whole market. We must get together in this matter 

 and the winter is the time to do it; that is one feature of our business 

 which is very unfortunate. We perhaps come here today and listen to 

 what is said. I think you will all agree with me that that is the best 

 method to pursue, but will you go at it and attempt anything before the 

 peaches are ripe? If by any means you look up these markets, know 

 where they are in advance, you are much better prepared to take advan- 

 tage of them. That is another means of securing better markets. 



INDIVIDUAL MARKETING. 



There is another plan left open in case all others fail, and that is a 

 determination to make a trade for yourself. It is no use for any man to 

 say "I can not do this thing," but your fruit has got to stand in one place 

 long enough to be known. You can not ship one day to one man and the 

 next to another or half a dozen. Do not believe that every commission 

 man is a thief under the best conditions. They may be under certain C(m- 

 ditions, but they are not fools, whatever you may think of them. If you 

 have ten thousand baskets of peaches coming and the commission m;in 

 knows or believes you are going to put those ten thousand baskets up 

 right, and that he is going to have all of them, he is not going to steal 



