standing of the Exchange is carefully watched. New appli- 

 cants for membership are accepted or rejected. The man- 

 ager outlines his plan for the next month and the Committee 

 advises before new lines of work are attempted. 



The manager is the keynote of success or failure in any 

 cooperative undertaking and I think it has been so in our 

 Exchange. For the first two years George Hildebrande of 

 Wisconsin held the position and right here let me say that 1 

 believe it was his enthusiasm and optimism that put the 

 Hudson River Fruit Exchange on the map. During this 

 season of 1914, Mr. R. B. Crowell has been our manager and 

 we all feel that we owe to his careful work the margin of 

 profit that we will have for this year. 



Now to come to just how we do business. In New York, 

 Boston, Philadelphia and all the principal large cities, we 

 have our own Exchange Commission men and members are 

 allowed to ship to these parties only. To quote from the 

 By-Laws : 



"Members of this Exchange bind themselves when con- 

 signing fruit to ship only to commisssion houses or auctions 

 duly designated by the Exchange. They also agree to ship 

 all fruit up to grade under the label of the Exchange and 

 fruit not up to grade without label." 



These commission houses rebate back to the Exchange 

 3% out of the 10% charged for selling. This is the main 

 source of income to meet expenses of the Exchange. You 

 ask. "Why the rebate?" Most firms are glad to get the ex- 

 tra l)usiness of the Exchange and it also saves the salary of 

 a representative in the field to drum business. Commission 

 firms must find it profitable for we are still receiving appli- 

 cation to sell for us. In the season of 1913 our rebate on 

 Commission Sales alone was over $4000. 



Our next income is obtained from commissions on F. 

 B. sales. The By-Laws read : 



"Fruit sold through the Exchange f. o. b. shipping or 

 track shall pay to the Exchange 3% of the gross price. In 



