8 FRUIT-GROWER, ST. JOSEPH, MO. 



confine himself to one or two varieties, like Ben 

 Davis or Missouri Pippin, the retail grower can sell 

 almost any good apple. This enables him to cover a 

 much longer season. 



The mistake is often made of thinking- that any 

 S9rt of fruit can be sold in the home market. When 

 one ships apples to the city markets one expects to 

 send the best; but poorly graded, poorly colored, sec- 

 ond class fruit will go in a country store or with 

 country customers. One ought to remember that in 

 these direct sales he is held personally responsible to 

 an extent not known in the larg-e markets. Further- 

 more the customer who buys a lot of apples at home 

 in an apple country is entitled to expect something 

 good. It is an old saying that the shoe-maker's chil- 

 dren go barefoot; and it is an unpleasant modern 

 illustration of it that one can buy better apples in 

 New York than in the apple regions, or that one can 

 get better Chicago beef in London than in Chicago. 

 Such things ought not to be, and everybody knows 

 they ought not. If one expects to cultivate his retail 

 trade he must serve his country customers decently, 

 and that means that they must have good goods. 



There are many other ways of selling fruit at 

 retail except to peddle it out on the streets of one's 

 home village. Some men of enterprise gradually 

 work up a list of city customers to whom they ship a 

 certain quantity of fruit every fall. Any right-minded 

 banker in -Denver, Kansas City or Pittsburg would 

 sooner have three barrels of fine apples fresh from 

 the grower, whom he knows, than to get the same 

 fruit at half the price from a commission house or 

 groceryman in his own city. There are thousands of 

 barrels of apples sold direct at retail in this manner 

 every fall, and it is one of the best ways ever devised 

 of selling fruit. "From producer to consumer direct" 



