FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
103 
state, which already had its claim de¬ 
partments, were attracted to the league by 
the promise of such a service. Up to 
the present time, however, this type of 
work has not been undertaken, largely be¬ 
cause of the fact that personally I have 
not had the proper experience in this 
kind of work to justify my undertaking 
it. We have made one underlying rule, 
namely that whatever the league under¬ 
takes, it is going to accomplish in the 
very best possible way. We do not feel 
that with the present work of organiza¬ 
tion over the state and carrying on the 
various lines of investigations, it is best 
to undertake the collection of claims. If 
it is best for us to establish a claim de¬ 
partment and there seems to be a suffi¬ 
cient demand to maintain such a depart¬ 
ment, then we will need a man who is 
equipped to handle that type of work. 
This will mean additional responsibility 
and additional finances.. It is a ques¬ 
tion that I feel you should decide 
and I refer this question to 1 you 
without recommendations. I am frank to 
confess, however, that the right kind of a 
man who is familiar with rate-making 
and comparative rates from different 
points in the United States would be of 
immense value to the league. The sys¬ 
tem of rate-making in this country has 
become so very complex that only an ex¬ 
pert can handle that part of the work. 
I do not see how you can afford to main¬ 
tain a league of this kind where'one of 
the main objects is the reduction of our 
freight charges without employing an ex¬ 
pert to handle these matters for you. It 
is jjossible that such a department might 
be made self-supporting by collecting 
claims on a percentage basis. I would 
like to have a free discussion of this sub¬ 
ject by those interested and I am confi¬ 
dent that the executive committee will be 
very glad to abide by your decision. 
advertising through the league. 
Another question of even greater im¬ 
portance has to do 1 with the possibility of 
making use of the league for the pur¬ 
pose of advertising Florida fruits and 
vegetables. The question of the advisa¬ 
bility of advertising perishable products 
has been settled in the affirmative. I need 
spend no time in arguing this question 
with you. Florida must advertise if she 
keeps abreast of the times with the great 
increased production she has coming on. 
The only question for us to decide is 
whether it is good business to use the 
league for any of this advertising. We 
advertise for the purpose of increasing 
consumption. Can the league increase 
consumption through any advertisements 
it might put out ? The apple growers and 
shippers of the north have decided this 
great question as far as they are con¬ 
cerned, and they are now engaged in a 
great plan of increasing consumption 
through a general publicity scheme simi¬ 
lar to what we would undertake. We 
would not have you get the impression 
that if we undertook an advertising cam¬ 
paign, that the different marketing agen¬ 
cies would discontinue) their 'advertise¬ 
ments. These would be continued, and 
we hope increased, but the league would 
make an effort to put before the public, 
and keep before them, the advantages of 
Florida products. We would give them 
new receipts to try. We would describe 
