602 



FRUIT AND GARDEN NOTES. 



on the safe side, I finally gave 4 cents a quart for the lot. 

 Now here comes in the importance of a daily wagon in 

 place of a grocery-store or any thing of the sort, espe- 

 ally for small towns. The boys soon drove up with the 

 wagon, and I told them to start the gooseberries at 5 

 cents. How do you think it turned out? Why the first 

 purchaser took the whole lot. The next day she sent for 

 another similar lot, to be sent her by express. Then 

 somebody who heard of it wanted another lot at the same 



price ; and the orders came so thick and fast that I was 

 obliged to make an advance from 5 cents up to 8 cents. 

 Had I not done so, every gooseberry would have been 

 taken from our whole plantation before it was anywhere 

 near ripe. 



' ' This transaction indicates bungling work. The grocers 

 made the first bungle in refusing to buy the gooseberries 

 of this young man and woman. Then she bungled by 



letting me know that she was afraid that nobody wanted 

 them at any price. Then I bungled still worse by letting 

 the report from the grocers influence my better judg- 

 ment. As our bushes also were overloaded, I sold three 

 lots at 5 cents a quart, and then found that the real value 

 of the product — that is, letting supply and demand regu- 

 late the price — was about 8 cents a quart, or 60 cents a 

 peck ; and they are going at this price fully as fast as I 

 want to see them go. Why, if any of us had looked at 

 the daily quotations in the papers in 

 the city of Cleveland, we should have 

 found green gooseberries worth $2 at 

 wholesale ! Now, the price we get, 

 $2.40 per bushel, is a very moderate 

 profit indeed for such a class of goods. 



' ' The same thing is to be seen daily 

 in almost all sorts of garden-produce. 

 For instance, we are getting a cent 

 an ounce for early cucumbers and 

 crookneck squashes. The man who 

 drives the wagon told me that it did 

 not please well to tell customers that 

 cucumbers, squashes and wax beans 

 were a cent an ounce. A better way 

 is to put them up in, say, lo-cent 

 packages — 10 ounces making a pack- 

 age. If a customer is shown some 

 nice squashes or cucumbers, and told 

 that the lot is worth 10 cents, he will 

 buy right along. But experience has 

 shown that it is not well to talk 

 ounces or pounds to him. Weighing 

 seems to be the only fair way of 

 treating all alike ; but the weighing 

 is a matter that the seller usually 

 keeps to himself. Of course, every 

 little while somebody thinks we give 

 only a very small lot for a dime ; but 

 the seller can say to him truthfully, 

 ' My friend, at this season of the year 

 this sort of stuff must be that which 

 has been started under glass ; and 

 the very late and frequent frosts of 

 last spring necessitated an unusual 

 amount of sash handling. We suc- 

 ceed in this way in getting these 

 nice goods when no one else has 

 any, as you see. Is it anything more 

 than fair that we should have some- 

 thing for our labor ? ' Explanations 

 like these make a transaction pleas- 

 ant that otherwise would only awaken hard feelings and 

 complaining remarks. 



" We produce crops when nobody else has any. We 

 have no oppositon — at least, not in our town — and stuff 

 sent in from the cities cannot compare with ours ; 

 therefore, it is our right and privilege to have good 

 pay for fine goods. We first started wax-beans, raised 

 under glass, at 10 cents a quart. After the demand 



