52 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. [Pub. Doc. 



consumer, cutting out the jobber and retailer, which means 

 an added cost in marketing ; this applies especially to the 

 smaller grower. 



I have often had fruit growers in New England say to 

 me, " I grow strawberries ; what do you average? " And I 

 say, " Sometimes we get the average and sometimes we 

 don't ; perhaps 10 or 11 cents." "Why," they reply, " mine 

 average 15 or 16 cents, by selling direct to consumers." 

 And the same with peaches; they get $1.50 or $1.25 a 

 basket, while mine perhaps average 80 or 90 cents. But I 

 say to them, "How many do 3^ou have?" Perhaps one 

 bushel, where I have a hundred, for that is the point. He 

 got two for one because he was raising them on a small 

 enough scale so he was enabled to sell direct to the con- 

 sumer ; but if he were to sell some to the retailers and some 

 to the consumers, he would be up against it, because the 

 dealers don't quite like his doing business that way, and will 

 not buy freely of one who sells in part to consumers. 



Then, again, the less cost of packages, generally. Small 

 fruit growers at a distance have to buy new crates and bas- 

 kets. The local grower has to huy new baskets ; but I know 

 a great many who market hundreds of bushels, and haven't 

 bought a crate in ten ^^ears. They just get them from retail 

 dealers who have had fruit from the south earlier in the sea- 

 son ; 5 cents each is about the price, though they are more 

 often furnished free by the dealer, who hopes to handle the 

 fruit in them later. 



Then there are no heavy transportation charges to the 

 local grower. It costs 6 or 7 cents a quart to ship straw- 

 berries from North Carolina and Delaware to Springfield, 

 including refrigerator charges ; all that is saved to the local 

 grower. The bringing in of outside fruit costs the shipper 

 from one-half to two-thirds the total proceeds of his product. 

 It costs him from $200 to $300 on a light car of strawberries 

 from Southern points, and in the neighborhood of $500 to 

 $550 on a car of Georgia peaches ; so the actual cost of 

 delivering goods by distant producers to this or any other 

 market in Massachusetts varies from $200 to $500 a car. 

 And those outside charges more than offset any injury to the 

 local market by outside fruit. 



