18 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



families save from 50 to 75 cents on each hamper. We are 

 giving them good vegetables cheaper than they can get them 

 otherwise, and we are getting the money, instead of the five 

 men who formerly got it. The hamper costs us about 14 cents, 

 and we pay the express ; other expenses perhaps 35 cents ; that 

 makes the cost inside 50 cents. We need one commission 

 man, or one big public market ; but there is no reason why we 

 should support four or five men, who do absolutely nothing, 

 simply because it is the custom to do so. 



One of those hampers was sent to Fort Wayne, Ind., to a 

 meeting which I attended. It got lost on the road somewhere, 

 was five days out, but fell into the hands of the president of 

 the railroad in some way, and he appropriated the contents. 

 He wrote me a letter, asking if there was any way he could 

 get those hampers each week for his family, because the vege- 

 tables were so good and fresh. The paraffine paper they are 

 wrapped in is the secret. Each one of these vegetables before 

 you is as damp as if the dew were on it, and they were shipped 

 yesterday morning. I undertook, with the aid of the paraffine 

 paper, to ship sweet corn to Paris, and it came through splen- 

 didly. Now all Europe is going into sweet corn ; they didn't 

 believe what we said about it until they saw it, — now they 

 know. 



We took up the tomato question, and jDut them up in these 

 baskets, 6 to the common crate. They are approximately 4 

 quarts each, but of course the approximation is always under ; 

 we never call them anything except a package or a basket. I 

 sent the tomatoes in, and followed them. The commission 

 man spent the morning telling me that they couldn't sell them, 

 they must be shipped in bushel crates, and in showing me why. 

 He showed me thousands of crates leaking tomato ketchup or 

 soup. When we got back to his ]ilace of business, M-e found 

 that the crates we sent in had been sold for $1.50 a crate. 

 When I got home he telephoned to ask for 25 crates in the 

 morning, and finally we were shipping him 175 a day, and 

 we were getting $1.50 each, and the other growers from 50 to 

 75 cents a bushel, according to the sn])ply. 



You can do just the same as we did. There are plenty of 

 peoi)lc in Boston who will take all the stuff you can raise; 



