FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 279 



Pacific railroad I could show you cities of 7,000 people that were retailing 

 your pears, that you could not give away here, at not less than ten cents 

 apiece, and they were paying large prices for the baskets. By entering 

 into an arrangement with certain commission men, the men whom they 

 are going to consign to. and the man who will actually give the difference 

 between good and poor fruit, then you can secure a good result. It is not 

 altogether the fault of the fruit growers that fruit does not sell in Chi- 

 cago. The fruit, after arriving in Chicago, goes through men that are 

 more cunning and more subtle than the farmers. It is packed there, and 

 the farmer is not responsible for the price or the quality of the fruit sold 

 there. 



Mr. Ramsdell : To my mind the key note of this whole matter of mar- 

 keting fruit is this, and in proof of it I would say that there was a com- 

 mittee of three appointed three years ago, maybe four, to see what could 

 be done by forming an organization to do this business of distributing 

 fruit ourselves. That committee worked faithfully, not days altogether 

 but nights and close into the Sunday, in order to see what could be done 

 with the assistance of those who were willing to do it. We had all the 

 constitutions and by-laws and everything of that kind in the way of 

 organizations that were trying to do this same thing, noticing the suc- 

 cesses and tremendous failures, but we still went on and worked and 

 called fourteen meetings in one winter, and there were very sensible 

 remarks from almost all the fruit growers that attended the meetings; 

 and in fact, we thought we had the matter pretty nearly in such shape 

 that we could organize and that it was progressing. The committee 

 thought so at any rate, and some others thought so, and finally when it 

 came time for spring's work and no more meetings could be held to any 

 advantage, we called a mass meeting to finish up this thing and see if 

 we could organize, and we had everything that was really agreed to in 

 the meeting before us. After talking about packing fruit, and almost 

 using oaths, some men did, in regard to the rascality of the commission 

 men and the wonderful honesty of the packers this side of the lake, the 

 result was just this: When we said on these articles of association that 

 every man that packed his fruit should have it as good all 

 through as it was on top, and then put his name on it and the name of the 

 association, we got just seventeen men out of one hundred and seventy 

 men to sign; and that is the whole thing we have done. The fact is, 

 nothing can be done in this business. I say this that you may do every- 

 thing that you can do, that has been named to do, and when you have 

 done all, if the fruit packers that raise the fruit do not pack it as it 

 should be and honestly, you can do nothing. The reputation of this place 

 suffers every year. Now, I say if there was a combination in this matter 

 that has good fruit honestly packed, then we can get rates on the rail- 

 roads and by express to send it where they please. The trouble has been, 

 they sent all that fruit to Chicago. 



