186 



but we still need a great improvement in the handling of 

 express packages. 



If one chooses to solve the problem for himself, of 

 course he has to resort to the use of the market wagon, with 

 its advantages and disadvantages, or the truck, and I be- 

 lieve we are at a time now when we should pay much more 

 attention to the advantages of marketing by truck. INIy 

 attention has been called to that very closely this Fall, not 

 so much on the fruit side as on the market garden side, 

 when I have seen, during the rush of the season, the truck 

 I'un right out onto the field and the heavy crops have been 

 handled directly from there. I believe the fruit man is 

 going to get some ideas and help from this very thing. I 

 believe also that the truck is going to be a greaier adjunct 

 to our business each succeeding year. Some of the light 

 trucks have done wonderful work this year in marketing 

 the peaches. I know where they have made runs of twenty, 

 twenty-five and thirty miles from the orchard and handled 

 an enormous amount of fruit, and I believe they are going 

 to be each year more A^aluable. 



I had occasion to use a truck in marketing small fruit 

 as far back as 1908. and at that time it was quite a question 

 as to whether it would lend itself to such work.; would 

 it be possible to take perishable fruit like raspberries, 

 strawberries, etc., to the market and handle the fruit in 

 yood shape? And Ave proved to our satisfaction that it 

 would. It was over very hard roads, with heavy grades, 

 and yet if Ave kept a reasonable speed, we were able to do 

 H, able to get valuable fruits into the market in those open, 

 fingle-layer crates, in perfect condition Avithout the injury 

 ol! hardly a berry, and I believe that each succeeding year 

 the trucks will be of more and more use to us. 



The next consideration is the market. There is A'ery 

 little I can tell you directly about the ultimate retail mar- 

 ket, because I have had little experience. I have ahvays 

 looked on the retailing of fruit as more of a proposition for 

 the peddler than for the farmer, and yet I knoAV it is possi- 



