8 FRUIT HARVESTING, STORING, MARKETING 



5. Transportation. — No other one condition so 

 positively determines the nature, the localization, and 

 the profits of fruit growing as transportation. Facilities 

 and rates are both of paramount importance. This 

 subject is one which does not admit of much general- 

 ization. Shipping facilities are different for every rail- 

 road station, and rates also vary considerably. 



6. Discovery of the right market. — Finally the man 

 who has fruit to sell must find the man who wants to 

 buy it. Porter apples sell well in Boston, but are not 

 wanted in New York ; Tolman Sweet sells in Phila- 

 delphia, but can't be given away in Rochester. In a 

 more general way it may be said that the man who 

 has grown many fancy varieties for a special market 

 must find his private customers. It will not do for 

 him to ship to a city commission man. Equally the 

 man who has grown large quantities of standard sorts, 

 like Ben Davis and Kieffer, need not search for a 

 fancy home trade. I know a man who has 1,000 to 

 2,000 barrels of fine apples every year, and who is dis- 

 gusted that he can not sell them in his home town for 

 as much as they will bring in New York. But the 

 fact and the explanation is that his whole business is 

 run on the general market plan. 



III. COMMISSION MEN 



Fruit which goes into the general or wholesale 

 market is practically all handled through the media- 

 tion of the commission man. ^s the general market 

 is the one most sought in America, it follows that the 

 commission man has flourished and multiplied and re- 

 plenished the earth. His presence seems to be ab- 



