METHODS EMPLOYED BY A FRUIT-MARKETING AGENCY 
Fig. 5. 
a somewhat better price than Cincinnati, 
and Boston, which submits an order from 
a well-known dealer at full asked price, 
whereupon the Pittsburgh offer is de- 
clined and the Boston order confirmed, 
and the first stage of the transaction has 
been completed. This is a perfect illustra- 
tion of the system. Cincinnati, by means 
of the salesmanship of the resident rep- 
resentative, was made to offer all that the 
condition of the market there warranted. 
Pittsburgh was in somewhat better shape, 
but the one market that could afford to 
buy and use this car at the extreme value 
was Boston, and by the operation of the 
system this important fact was discovered 
and capitalized. 
1295 
Figure 6 
Here the grower is notified of the sale, 
and instructed to begin loading, pending 
receipt of detailed instructions by mail. 
Under the old crude methods, the con- 
firmation of sale would have been regard- 
ed as about the closing step in the trans- 
action, whereas, under the comprehensive 
system nowadays employed, the process of 
turning the fruit into money has there- 
with only begun, and will not be complete 
until the delivery is safely made and the 
money actually paid over. The “usual 
terms” in the fruit trade being “inspec- 
tion and acceptance at destination,” the 
producer is practically obligated to as- 
sume the risks of sound and satisfactory 
delivery to the buyer; hence, modern mar- 
keting service contemplates not merely 
the negotiation of the sale but the safe- 
guarding of the producers’ interests 
against all the hazards of transportation 
to a distant market. In the perishable- 
fruit trade a multitude of things can hap- 
pen to a shipment between the time of its 
sale f. o. b. and delivery to the buyer. 
Hence, the latter part of the service, 
while less spectacular than the negotia- 
tion of the sale itself, is nevertheless 
equally important or even more so,_ It 
is likewise the most expensive part of 
the service. 
Figure 7 
One of the greatest disadvantages of 
the fruit business is the matter of rejec- 
tions by the buyer. It is human nature 
to blame the other fellow, but experience 
shows that the seeds for most rejections 
are sown by the seller himself at the time 
of negotiating the sale. Frequently the 
fruit is overdescribed by a too enthus- 
iasti¢ salesman, and the buyer given 
grounds for justifiable rejection on the 
basis of misrepresentation. The tempta- 
tion to do this is so great that strictly 
first-class fruit salesmen are harder to 
find than salesmen in almost any other 
business. Also, the fruit trade has been 
developed very rapidly, and has far out- 
stripped the methods for its conduct. It 
has been customary to do the business 
entirely on verbal understandings, where- 
as, in other fields of merchandising, sales 
