SELLING AGENCIES 185 
glected by a great many exchanges and one which is 
vital to the best interests of the organization. In the 
spring, after the old crop is out of the way and the man- 
agement is then turning its attention to the oncoming 
crop he begins to need information regarding conditions 
from the producing end. The manager makes up a list 
of questions, puts them in bulletin form, leaving a space 
to write in the answer and sends a copy to each member. 
Among the questions that he would ask would be the 
following: (1) Name and address. (2) Number of 
acres in fruit. (3) Kinds of fruit. (4) Estimate of 
the crop. This is properly done in the early season. 
Each member of the exchange fills in the blank and re- 
turns it to the main office in June or early July. The 
manager gets the data together and begins to file it in 
shape to be available later when the time for selling 
comes. Then a little later in August, or early Sep- 
tember, when it would be possible to predict rather 
accurately the prospects of the oncoming crop, another 
set of questions would be sent out. This time special 
attention would be given to the name or the varieties 
of the fruit grown, the number of trees in bearing of 
each of these varieties and an estimate of the crop, not 
only as to the quantity but as to the probable grades 
or quality. 
In the first year of the life of the exchange this is 
rather difficult to get, but where the information has 
been kept from year to year through this medium it 
becomes quite easy to predict a month or two ahead of 
time what per cent of the fruit will be good and what 
part will be fancy or No. 1. The manager classifies this 
information so he is able to forecast pretty accurately 
