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sort can best be handled by the growers organizing into an 

 association and supplying this service to the members. Such 

 an organization was formed in Framingham last year, and was 

 successful . 



This question of a farmers' organization is a very important 

 one, and one that is not perhaps sufficiently emphasized. The 

 public market where the farmers are organized would certainly 

 be more successful than where they are not. The function of 

 the organization should not be to fix prices but to stabilize the 

 supply, and by proper newspaper advertising to create a de- 

 mand at the necessary times. The retailer uses newspaper 

 publicity freely, and if the public market is to compete with 

 him the same channels probably will have to be used. A small 

 assessment on the membership will purchase advertising enough 

 to make a big increase in demand at the proper times. 



Objections to the Public Market. 



Several objections have been urged against farmers' retail 

 public markets. 



The principal objection has been that farmers could not 

 afford time to sell produce which they needed out home on 

 their farms to grow it. It is certain that they cannot afford 

 this time unless they get sufficient increase over the wholesale 

 price to compensate them for their labor as salesmen. But in 

 many of our towns neighboring farmers have sold their produce 

 to private retail trade, delivering it from house to house, and 

 in many cases allowing their customers to run bills. The public 

 market is fully as economical a method of distribution as this. 

 It will take less of the farmer's time and less horse power. To 

 the very large grower, the man who grows apples by the hundreds 

 of barrels or vegetables by the thousands of boxes, the retail 

 public market will probably not make an attractive appeal, but 

 it is a fact that some of the large growers have availed them- 

 selves of the markets to some extent this past year, although 

 the prediction was made that they would not go near them. 

 For the large market gardener it is probable that a wholesale 

 market, such as the market operated in Providence by the 

 Providence Market Gardeners' Association, will be more eco- 



