138 HORTICULTURE, FORESTRY, FLORICULTURE 



the experience has been otherwise. Not infrequently has it happened 

 that shipments consigned to a distant city have been reported as not 

 being up to grade, or not in good condition, so the market price could 

 not be realized. In such cases, though the manager may be certain 

 that his fruit is as he represented, he is often unable to help himself, 

 so must take what he can get. But of late years, the plan of selling 

 F. 0. B. is being practiced more and more, and this is largely due 

 to the organized efforts of the associations. Consignments are only 

 made to well known firms, and much of this fruit is sold at auction. 

 But even with this arrangement difficulties arise, so in order to pro- 

 tect themselves, the larger associations have an agent at the more im- 

 portant distributing points. It is the duty of the agent, or broker, to 

 inspect all cars which come into his territory, as near the destination 

 as possible, and thus protect the association from dishonest buyers. 

 He also is on hand to adjust the differences which arise when the 

 fruit actually reaches the buyer in poor condition. 



Express shipments are only made to comparatively near-by 

 points, and with such shipments, the growers receive exactly what the 

 fruit brings less the expressage and the association's commission. It 

 is usually the early fruits that are expressed, but prohibitive rates 

 prevent any very large amount of business being done in this way. 

 An association, well managed, is always a benefit to the entire com- 

 munity, in that it builds up a reputation for the fruit, and holds up 

 prices, inasmuch as there is not that tendency, even among non-mem- 

 bers, to bid one against another in marketing. 



In addition to this, it may be said that the managers are con- 

 stantly insisting on the necessity of growing better fruit, and so have 

 been instrumental in introducing new and improved methods of cul- 

 ture. (Colo. E. S. B. 122.) 



Cold Storage Warehouse Business. During the past twenty years 

 the commercial fruit business has developed a system of warehouses 

 cooled by mechanical methods of refrigeration. These warehouses 

 are sometimes operated as independent fruit-storage plants, but more 

 often the storage of the fruit is a department of a general cold-storage 

 warehouse business. The storage of apples in mechanically cooled 

 warehouses has developed largely since 1890, though there has been 

 a gradual evolution in ice making and in the application of ice to 

 the preservation of fruits and vegetables, from the simple methods 

 of the ancients in India, who produced ice by the evapoartion of 

 water exposed to the night air in shallow, porous vessels, to the highly 

 developed ice-making machines that cool the warehouses of the 

 present day. As soon as it was found that apples could be kept satis- 

 factorily in mechanically cooled warehouses, the application of the 

 warehouse system to the commercial fruit industry was quickly 

 perceived, and, in connection with the recent rapid development of 

 the apple industry, warehouses for the cold storage of fruit have been 

 constructed in nearly every large city and in many of the smaller 

 towns in the apple belts. 



Relation of the Warehouseman to the Fruit Storer. The cold- 

 storage warehouse business has developed so rapidly that the relation 



