ORGANISATION. i8i 



of supply to be able to run special fast trains from the Cote 

 d'Azur to Channel ports, where special steamers await 

 their arrival, to ship the goods to our shores. The Rapide 

 des Fleurs has become a well-known institution. In addition 

 they maintain special cold-storage depots. The fruit and 

 vegetable trade from Normandy and Brittany is likewise 

 brisk. And Brittany sends us many potatoes and other 

 vegetables, likewise by special boats. In America the 

 " Peninsular Products Exchange of Maryland " spends 

 something like ;£2,ooo a year on nothing but the collection 

 of information concerning the trade in such fruit as it deals 

 in. The " California Fruit Growers " have more than 12,000 

 members, cultivating among them about 120,000 acres, and 

 dispatching annually about 15,000,000 boxes of fruit. The 

 " Wathen Fruit Growers' Association " in 1910 (being then 

 five years old) disposed of about 40,000,000 boxes, equal 

 to about 100 railway truckloads, of strawberries alone, in 

 addition to 35,000 boxes (among 50,000 sent in all by the 

 district) of grapes, 10,000 boxes of raspberries, 20,000 of 

 blackberries, 62,500 of cherries, currants and gooseberries, 

 and 326 truckloads of apples, to the collective value (apples 

 alone) of £35,000. America and France have distinguished 

 themselves by particularly careful grading, making minute 

 differences as between " Extra Fancy," " Fancy," " Extra 

 Choice," " Choice," and so on. In France a leading expert, 

 M. Gavoty, has laid it down that " The most important part 

 out of all the matter is the very careful grading of goods, 

 the offer of them in a presentable condition, and the steady 

 delivery of goods of good quality and strictly uniform." 

 (" La question qui prime tout c'est le triage severe de la 

 marchandise, la bonne presentation et la regularite d' expedition 

 de produits tres uniformes et de bonne qualite.") 



The same care in the selection and treatment of the 

 article produced, as in respect of fruit and eggs and butter, 

 tells in the production of grain, whether wheat, or barley, 

 or rye, or oats, or — in America — maize. It has been 

 mentioned that in parts of Germany through the interposi- 

 tion of co-operative granaries — which collect, store, dress, 

 and eventually sell, the grain at convenient times — being 



