The Canadian Horticulturist. • 49 



SELL YOUR OWN FRUIT, AND SAVE THE MIDDLE- 

 MAN'S PROFITS. 



^HE best method of creating and establishing a trade in a new field 



^ is to run a delivery wagon. The commission of the seller will 



more than pay for the extra work, the sales are more easily 



increased and the customers more easily retained. The latter's 

 tastes can be more easily learned and their supplies more readily 

 selected to their satisfaction. In starting in the business try and 

 obtain for customers some of the best people in the village. Tell 

 them plainly your intentions and secure their consent for a trial 

 before the fruits and vegetables are ready for sale. By doing 

 this, the best consumers are secured from the first ; and when 

 the time for delivery comes, a route is already established and the dread of 

 peddling is removed. Invite customers to make criticisms. The best may be 

 hard to please, but I have found them willing to pay well for what they want, 

 and supplying their wants will teach the grower to be particular and painstaking. 

 These qualities should be early learned and always retained. 



I never put inferior fruit on the market. The sorting is done by the 

 pickers in the field and they also face the boxes on top, not with the largest 

 berries, but with the medium-sized, placed with the hulls down. The object is 

 to get each box uniformly full and add attractiveness. Facing the box makes it 

 a thing of beauty to the picker, and being particular with the top will teach him 

 to be neat in all the work. 



By the time the season is fairly opened I set my prices and stick to them. 

 By doing this, I begin to take orders for canning at once, and my customers 

 know that no matter when they take the fruit for this purpose, the price will be 

 the same. By the time home-grown berries ripen, foreign berries are selling at 

 IOC. per qt. I start at 12c. in that case and drop to loc. when the main crop 

 ripens and hold to this price through the season. One thing to guard against is 

 not to charge one customer more than another. This they will not forget or 

 forgive. When the customers find out they cannot buy for less than the given 

 price, they will stop haggling over it. If I can get loc. for strawberries, I do 

 not raise after the crop begins to get scarce, and the regular customers are the 

 only ones supplied at those times. 



It is surprising to see hew much fruit a family can be made to eat. When 

 fresh strawberries are offered at their doors it takes quite a degree of self-sacrifice 

 on their part to say no. If one variety of fruit does not quite suit their fancy 

 have another differing in color or flavor. Keep them eating and canning all 

 summer, and the secret of doing it, is to place the fruit where they must say no, 

 instead of leaving for them the necessity of going to the market for their supplies. 



