76 GOOD SELLING IS A FARMER'S NEED 



for you can retail the fruit or can more often fix the price 

 for the fruit than you can for ordinary farm produce. 

 Business ability is required in learning where is the best 

 market for fruit of a certain character or kind. It is a 

 fact that while a certain fruit may be cheap in New 

 York, it may sell at a profitable price in Boston, Pitts- 

 burgh, or in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Chicago or St. Louis. 



The man who sells fruit should be thoroughly posted on 

 its value, and should inform the purchaser of the extra 

 quality of certain varieties. 



There are many dishonest commission houses. It is not 

 safe to send fruit to a commission house which is not 

 highly recommended to you or with which you have not 

 had satisfactory experience. 



An Associated Press dispatch says: "Unskillful 

 handling of poultry and eggs costs the people of the 

 United States $45,000,000 annually, is the conclusion of 

 the Kansas State board of health, after six months' in- 

 vestigation, in which expert produce men from the de- 

 partment of agriculture were used. The price of eggs 

 is high, says the report, and competition is keen, but the 

 producer gains nothing, not because there is a combina- 

 tion to keep the original price to the wholesaler down, 

 but because of the manner in which eggs and poultry are 

 handled. Because of the large number of farmers who 

 are careless in marketing their eggs, the careful farmer 

 is forced to accept the same price as is paid his less in- 

 dustrious neighbor. In Kansas alone, this loss is estimated 

 at more than $1,000,000 a year." 



