172 MODERN FRUIT MARKETING 
(2) There is no check on charges or prices, (3) The 
producer has no opportunity to know or understand 
the market conditions. The first one need not be com- 
mented on particularly. But it is necessary that the 
grower use his best business judgment in getting a re- 
liable and honest house, and it is due to the unscrupulous 
commission men that so much vengeance has been de- 
clared against them. 
The lack of check on charges and prices is a situation 
which no good reliable business firm would tolerate. It 
would be out of the question to ask a buyer of a box 
of fruit to give a receipt for the amount of money paid 
and these to be forwarded to the man who had the fruit 
for sale, but yet again in the larger exchanges this is 
exactly what is done. Commission houses would prob- 
ably refuse to do this and it would entail considerable 
bookkeeping and, in many ways, would be impractical 
from the standpoint of the consumer, and so the custom 
has been to accept the statements of the commission men 
and ask for no receipts whereby to prove the correctness. 
The last, in the producer failing to know the market 
conditions, is a question of education and one which is 
vital to the industry of the fruit in general. No longer 
is it possible to grow fruit and get good results without 
also knowing of the conditions in which the fruit is sold 
and used, and the producer who patronizes the commis- 
sion men who does not have the opportunities to get in- 
formation of these conditions has little chance to improve 
himself and become a progressive grower. This, in the 
opinion of many of the more successful orchardists, is 
the greatest objection to the prevailing method of com- 
mission houses, 
