202 Strawherry-Growing 



packages he contributed to that grade. The first type 

 undertakes merely to get the fruit to market, not to set a 

 price on it and sell it. This plan originated at Centralia, 

 Illinois, about 1887, and has been used extensively in the 

 South. 



The advantages of a forwarding association, and the 

 methods used, have been stated by F. S. Earle:^ "The 

 smaller growers at large shipping centers find it difficult 

 to load in car-lots and thus secure low freight rates and 

 prompt service. To obviate this difficulty a form of 

 shipping association was early devised by which all or a 

 number of shippers at any given point combine in loading 

 cars. A loading and an unloading agent are appointed. 

 The former receives the berries as they come from the 

 farms, sees that they are properly loaded, makes out a 

 manifest for each car showing the number of packages 

 from each shipper to each consignee, and bills the car to 

 the unloading agent. The entire load thus goes as a 

 single shipment to one consignee, although it may con- 

 tain berries from a hundred shippers, marked to one- 

 fourth as many commission merchants in the same city. 

 On the arrival of the car the unloading agent pays the 

 freight and promptly unloads them, delivering the goods 

 to the various commission houses, from whom he collects 

 pro-rata for the freight and the loading and unloading 

 charges. The same unloading agent usually acts for a 

 number of shipping associations, so that his charges are 1 

 reduced to the minimum." The Southern Produce Com- 

 pany, of Norfolk, Virginia, illustrates a slightly different 

 type of forwarding association. This company attends 

 to the loading, icing and routing of the berries, but the 

 grower directs to whom they shall be consigned. The 



1 Yearbook, U. S. Dept. Agr., 1900, p. 449. 



