388 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL oOCIETY. 



an association is very attractive to many. We are all more or 

 less in favor of taking things easy, and if one can haul in to his 

 association a hundred cases of strawberries per day, and if by the 

 simple act of taking a receipt for this fruit he can shift upon the 

 manager the responsibility of finding a market, selling the fruit 

 and collecting the price, this is very likely to be the thing he will 

 do. 



Again this is an age of concentration and specialization of 

 eflfort. Through fruit growers' associations, by the economic 

 principle of division of labor, which is giving to one person but 

 one kind of thing to do, both expert raising and expert marketing 

 of fruit may be secured. And this is no small advantage, for 

 it often happens that a grower who raises the finest quality and 

 best grade of fruit makes a financial failure in the marketing of 

 it. 



Competition is so keen that successful marketing requires the 

 closest and most constant study of conditions and the exercise of 

 the keenest business ability. Now, the successful grower has his 

 time pretty well occupied in finding out what varieties to choose, 

 what kind of soil they need and what degree of moisture, how to 

 till, prune and spray them both for insects and plant diseases, in 

 securing and overseeing pickers and getting the fruit graded prop- 

 erly and packed in a neat, cleanly and attractive manner. In 

 fact, his time is so fully occupied with these things that he is 

 willing indeed to leave to the association manager the task of 

 keeping in touch with many different markets, of estimating the 

 total visible supply of each kind of fruit for each day of the week, 

 of finding out the date of the expected arrival of three carloads 

 of Hood River berries from the Pacific coast, of learning how 

 many people are expected at a certain convention in a certain city 

 and how many bushels of his surplus they will eat, and many more 

 similar details of marketing. And then there is the question of 

 John Henry Jones & Co. Are they good financially, or will their 

 account be discounted fifty per cent? And how shall we get our 

 pay from that man "Spoopendyke" ? What shall we do with this 

 shipment that has been refused? How shall we persuade the ex- 

 press company to allow that claim for damage in transit? These 

 and a score of other difficulties the grower is delighted to turn over 

 to the business manager of the association. And he does this 

 wisely, for the growing of fruit and the marketing of fruit are two 

 distinct lines of business. And while the successful grower is 



