MARKETING FRUIT. 223 



MARKETING FRUIT. 



LEVI LONGFELLOW, MINNEAPOLIS. 



(A Talk.) 

 While I probably planted the first peach tree in Minnesota 

 I am not a practical horticulturist, but I know something about 

 getting the stuff into the hands of the people who eat it, and 

 one of the essential things is to have it in good shape, honestly 

 packed, so there will be no complaint. As an illustration of the 

 trouble caused by not observing this rule I want to tell you of 

 an occurrence that happened a few days ago. We got in a car of 

 apples the other day, and they looked very fine. We shipped 

 them into the country, where a man peddled them out to the 

 merchants. He called them to the station, where they saw the 

 fruit ; they were pleased with it, bought it and paid for it. Now 

 we are getting complaints right along about that car of fruit. 

 The barrels had the traditional half bushel of good fruit on top, 

 and the balance was inferior. Nothing discourages the merchant 

 so much or disgusts the customer so much as to get a package 

 of fruit in the house that is not as good as it looks to be. They 

 have tried to legislate against dishonest packing in Canada, but 

 with not very satisfactory results as yet. The inspector looks 

 at a few packages, and then they go through, and when they get 

 across the water they get into trouble. There is nothing that 

 helps to sell ordinary kinds of fruit like a good package, provided 

 it has a good top and bottom. But that is difficult to practice. 

 You put a bushel of potatoes in the wagon, and the little ones 

 will shake down to the bottom and the big ones will come on 

 top, (Laughter.) 



There is one disadvantage under which we are laboring in 

 Minnesota: we are so widely scattered that we cannot have that 

 uniformity of action and that co-operation that they have in the 

 eastern states and in California and Oregon. There every com- 

 munity is in the same line of business, and they can get together 

 and form organizations, and there is a man hired to inspect their 

 stuff without opposition. You know how it was when we start- 

 ed our creameries in this state. A man furnished milk that was 

 worth 25 to 40 per cent more than his neighbor's, yet he received 

 the same price, but now every man gets paid for the full value 

 of the cream he furnishes. So in the communities where they 

 grow fruit they have a secretary to look after the business dur- 

 ing the fruiting and marketing season, and he sees that justice is 

 done to the growers as well as to the consumers. If I go to mar- 



