THE FARMER AND THE PARCEL POST 111 



(6) Remarks. 



In order to cover as many sections of the country, as many 

 farmers, and as many separate shipments as possible, the 

 Housekeepers' Alliance will receive answers to the foregoing 

 questions from all who desire to thus cooperate with it. 



The organization will collate this information and place the 

 results before the city consumer, as well as the farmer, for the 

 information and guidance of each. 



Quotations by farmers for their products will continue to 

 be found posted on the bulletin board of the Public Library, 

 Mount Vernon Square in this city. 



The purpose of this undertaking by the Post Office Depart- 

 ment, with the cooperation of public-spirited persons and in- 

 stitutions, is to bring the city consumer and country producer 

 together through the facilities offered by the parcel post. This 

 consists of a very simple proceeding. After you have written 

 to a farmer on this list, or any other farmer whose address you 

 have learned from some acquaintance, and have made arrange- 

 ments as to the price and payment for the articles you want to 

 buy, take a strong market basket with a cover or a double cor- 

 rugated paste-board mailing box, and send it to the farmer. If 

 it weighs a pound it will cost 5 cents to mail it to the farmer 

 empty ; if between two and three pounds, it will cost 7 cents to 

 maiL Double corrugated shipping boxes of various types can 

 be purchased very cheaply from paper stores and market sup- 

 ply houses in Washington. 



When you have found a satisfactory fanner to deal with, 

 shopping by parcel post becomes a simple process of sending 

 your market basket to the farm with a letter telling what you 

 want. The cost of that process is just a little less than if you 

 got on a street car and rode down town and back, and just a 

 trifle more than if you ordered what you wanted over the tele- 

 phone. You can mail your empty basket at any drug-store pos- 

 tal station. The parcel post brings the filled basket to your 

 door. This simple process of sending an ordinary, strong, 

 market basket to the farm has been found to be entirely satis- 

 factory for shipping short distances say fifty to one hun- 

 dred miles, several such baskets now going empty and returning 

 filled weekly through the Washington Post Office. 



Housewives who want to deal with the farmers direct will 

 realize that sometimes they may not be able to make an entirely 



