Commercial Disposal of the Sweet Potato 255 



cally becomes a sight draft, and after being paid becomes 

 a receipted bill. The buyer then presents his receipted 

 bill to the railroad company, which turns over his car- 

 load of potatoes. No credit is extended, no room is left 

 for fraud, and the seller receives his money immediately. 

 When business is done in this way, the seller must play 

 the game fairly and stand squarely behind his goods and 

 his selling price. If the goods do not measure up to 

 what they were bought for, he should make the deficiency 

 good. 



Miscelkmeous methods. — Sweet potatoes are fre- 

 quently sold to a considerable extent by direct sale to 

 consumers in different parts of the country. This is 

 a favorite way of selling seed stock. Usually adver- 

 tisements are run in the classified columns of numerous 

 farm journals and the goods are shipped by express or 

 freight direct to the buyer. To avoid handling a large 

 number of small accounts, the seller usually requires the 

 order to be accompanied by the purchase price. A 

 mode of selling sweet potatoes which has recently come 

 into use on the markets, but with which the grower has 

 no connection, is through the fruit auction companies. 

 Carload lots of specified grade, variety and character 

 are sold to highest bidders. These auction companies 

 are usually profit-sharing corporations. Growers never 

 consign cars directly to an auction company, they are 

 always sent to some agent, who may turn them over to 

 the auction company if the shipper so desires. If the 

 car is a cooperative shipment, a manifest of the contents 

 of the car, giving the name of each contributor and the 

 quality, variety and grade which it contained, is made in 

 duplicate, one copy being sent to the agent and the other 

 to the auction company. The manifest should be sent 



