THE FRUIT MARKET 9 



solutely necessary to the sale of fruit in large quantities, 

 though growers have mostly come to regard his pres- 

 ence as a necessary evil. According to the ordinary 

 practice, the grower ships his strawberries, his plums, 

 or muskmelons to a certain commission man in the 

 city — say to Murphy & McBride, of Baltimore. 

 Murphy & McBride .send a postal card acknowledging 

 the receipt of the shipment, and specifying that the 

 fruit was received in good or bad condition, as the 

 case may be. When the fruit is sold they make their 

 returns to the shipper. If Murphy & McBride are 

 honest and solvent the returns are made promptly, ac- 

 companied by a check for the balance due the shipper. 

 The memorandum returned to the shipper shows the 

 packages of fruit sold, the selling price of each lot, 

 and the gross amount received. Express or freight 

 charges are deducted, as is also the commission charged. 

 The accompanying copy of an account sales will give 

 a clearer idea of the transaction. 



This arrangement works ver}- well if the commis- 

 sion house is thoroughly honest, and if — a condition 

 equally important — the fruit shipper is also honest. 

 As soon as either one begins to cheat the whole basis 

 of the business is immediately destroyed and the most 

 deplorable results follow. Unfortunately the stren- 

 uous competition among commission men, as well as 

 the profound duplicity of many consignors, forces 

 ever>' commission house with the least pregnable con- 

 science into some form or other of cheating. The 

 simplest trick, of course, is to sell a consignment of 

 fruit for a hundred dollars and return only seventy- 

 five. But there are hundreds of others quite as effect- 



