OBSERVATIONS OF A COMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 



295 



phone is used and agreement made before the grocer attempts the 

 sale of the goods. 



If you would see the amount of fruit that is picked over in the 

 back rooms of the grocery stores every day in the year and the waste 

 that is thrown away, you would wish to devise further ways and 

 means not only to raise better fruit but to get it to the consumer in 

 still better condition than he now gets it. Strange as it may seem, 

 the crushed fruits and fruit syrups used at the soda fountain is a 

 great help to the fruit grower and, perhaps, in a way that he little 

 suspects. Some large retail grocers keep a man in the summer 

 time who works every night preparing the fruit left over from the 

 previous day's sale for soda fountain use; otherwise it would spoil. 

 Some wholesale grocers who have a trade in the soda fountain line 

 make a business of buying up canned fruits that are thrown onto 

 the market near the end of the season at low prices and preparing 

 them for soda fountain use as well as making them into jellies and 

 jams. 



The fruit growers' associations are really grand good mstitutions, 

 and you should have more of them and larger ones. We hear a 

 great deal against trusts, but I do know that a combination of pro- 

 ducers can handle transportation companies and refrigerator lines 

 and deal with commission men and fruit merchants far better than 

 any one individual can. 



The latest thing in the refri- 

 gerator line is a nice little one, 

 called "Grant's Berry Cooler," that 

 will hold about a hundred boxes 

 of berries, on rollers which the re- 

 tail grocer can set out on his side- 

 walk. It has a glass front and 

 displays the fruit nicely to passers 

 by, and the fruit is still cool, no 

 matter how hot the day may be. 

 I urge every fruit grower to have 

 his own refrigerator and let it be 

 large enough for his business. 

 The better condition you can get 

 your fruit to market in, the more 

 will you get for it. If your goods are 

 put onto the market right and with 

 plenty of refrigeration you can 



never overdo the business. The consumption of fruit is increasing 

 rapidly and will continue to increase if consumers can get it in proper 



Grant's Berry Cooler. 



