61 



cost 40 cents, picking around 20 cents, and packing and de- 

 livering to the railroad 15 to 20 cents more, you see is leaves 

 me the magnificent sum of 25 cents to cover care of orchard, 

 spraying, interest on investment and profit(?). I can reach 

 the same result by letting them fall off and lay on the 

 ground. 



You say thi^ is an exceptional year, perhaps, and that l 

 am getting all I am entitled to. Let us see. I talked last 

 week with an intelligent man living in one of the suburbs 

 of Boston, and he told me he had been unable to get apples 

 at any time this Fall for less than 46 and 50 cents a peck, or 

 at the rate of $5. to $5.50 per bbl. Now, adding to the dol- 

 lar which I get, the freight 38 cents, trucking 5 cents, and 

 commission 20 cents, we have a selling price, apparently of 

 $1.63. This leaves a margin to the middleman of $3.50 to 

 $b.75. The expenses are to come out of this, of course, but 

 it looks large beside the 25 cents the farmer gets for his ex- 

 penses and profit. Does it not ? 



Again, while it may not be the correct view, the aver- 

 age farmer believes the average commission man sells his 

 stuff and sends him what he pleases ; and too often when he 

 compares his returns with the newspaper quotations of same 

 date, he feels justified in this attitude, and also justified in 

 making remarks that would not look well in quotation 

 marks. 



For instance, I shipped you some Kings a short time 

 since. The quotations during all the time up to the time T 

 received returns were $3 to $4 for No. 1. My returns were 

 $2.50 as the selling price. Now, I am not accusing anybody 

 of dishonesty, but I do say that that is the usual result, and 

 when taken into account with the fact that receipts do not 

 any more than pay for his cash outlay, you cannot expec: 

 the farmer to be very anxious to do business with you. 



Now this is the way we feel about it, and as a result I 

 have joined with several of my neighbors and exported our 

 apples, with much better results. And this brings me to 

 what I started to say, and that is that the farmers are get- 



