6 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



years growing and shipping fruit, the writer has always found the net returns 

 from commission salesmen very far below those from direct sales. This is 

 accounted for in several ways. First, the commission agent never knows what 

 quantity of fruit he will have to handle until the arrival of the train, and he is 

 therefore unable to make sales in advance. All must be sold at some price, or 

 the whole may be wasted. The result is that there are great gluts in the height 

 of strawberry season, raspberry season, and so on through the list. Fruit is sold 

 at an awful sacrifice, scarcely paying the shipper for gathering it, when at the 

 same time there may be a famine of the same fruits in many a small town, not 

 fifty miles away. Secondly, we find that commission men often buy on their 

 own account, and in that case always sell such purchases before that consigned; 

 the latter must take the poorest chances, and sometimes be dumped, while wait- 

 ing for its turn. Thirdly, many commission merchants consider it the lawful 

 thing to sell all consignments to themselves at the very lowest market price, in 

 order to fill orders, or to be used for their own retail sales. From this price they 

 deduct the commission, and in consequence the shipper gets a very small net 

 sum for what might perhaps, if a fair chance were given it in the open market, 

 bring a high price. For instance, a grower once forwarded a quantity of apples 

 to a commission merchant (not in Toronto) and received an answer to the effect 

 that they were worth $1.12 to $1.25 per barrel. Not being satisfied he 

 journeyed to the city, and actually bought his own apples from the salesman at 

 $2.25 per barrel. In an hour or two he returned, undisguised, and, on en- 

 quiring the state of the market, was informed that good apples realized $1.00 

 and $1.25, veryprimeas much as $1.50. 



What remedy to propose, or to practise ourselves, is a perplexing question ; 

 but there is no doubt that selling direct to a reliable retailer is a step in the right 

 direction. But what is to be done with the surplus on those days when there is 

 more than can be sold in this way ? At present there is no help, it must go to 

 the commission house. 



The auction system has been worked with great success in England, and 

 although a former attempt to establish it in the city of Toronto was a compara- 

 tive failure, that does not prove that it might not be a success. Surely an open 

 sale would be more in the interest of the shipper than the present mode of ship- 

 ping indiscriminately to commission merchants. What do our readers think on 

 this question ? 



MR. PERRY ON GROWING STRAWBERRIES. 



ly fl R. PERRY, a noted Ohio gardener, has lately published a book on How 

 ^ Y I to Grow Strawberries, from which the following extract is made : — 



We may safely say that the total value of the crop from several rods 

 less than half an acre at wholesale prices was $287. No attempt was made to 

 get the last dollar out of them, or the receipts might have been pushed up to 



