FLORIDA .STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
157 
portation companies in this country, for 
six years. His experience as a railroad 
man covers a great many years prior to 
his connection with that claim department. 
He is well up on transportation matters, 
as well as handling claims with transpor¬ 
tation companies. His policy has been 
to file claims only which had merit, there¬ 
by commanding the confidence of the 
transportation companies in his honesty 
of purpose, which has already been es¬ 
tablished. Present indications are that 
this department alone will collect enough 
from claims against transportation com¬ 
panies to pay more than one third of the 
entire running expenses of the Florida 
Citrus Exchange covering all of its de¬ 
partments. It is reasonably safe to say 
that without this department a very small 
percentage of these claims would have 
been collected and the money paid to the 
growers to whom it belongs. 
The exchange has a general or business 
manager, whose duties are multitudinous. 
All matters pertaining to the business be¬ 
tween the sub-exchanges and the central 
exchange come under his supervision. 
Also, the relations of the associations to 
the sub-exchange are often brought to his 
department for advice and adjustment. 
Matters of general interest to the organ¬ 
ization are taken up by him with the va¬ 
rious heads of the departments for con¬ 
sideration and final disposition. 
Aside from the heads of the depart¬ 
ments in the central office we have a gen¬ 
eral northern agent whose duties are to 
supervise all districts, to go in time of 
trouble to any district and look into mat¬ 
ters that may arise, ascertain whether or 
not the district managers are performing 
their duties properly, seeking out the 
weak points in the organization on the 
other end of the line, finding new men to 
fill places that are not properly filled, scru¬ 
tinizing all correspondence that may be 
sent to him from the central office and 
from the district managers, and finding 
the weak spots and strengthening them. 
It has happened during the past season 
that we have had to send the general 
northern agent from city to city where 
we had reason to believe correct reports 
were not being made of shipments to 
those districts. In every case where this 
has occurred, he has found that the re¬ 
ports that were made to this office were 
in accordance with the facts. 
The entire business of the Florida Cit¬ 
rus Exchange is conducted under the su¬ 
pervision of its Board of Directors which 
meets weekly in its office at Tampa, for 
the purpose of considering all matters that 
may be presented by the different heads 
of the departments and the general man¬ 
ager. 
It will be noted that having provided 
ourselves with a selling force in the field 
and a competent northern manager to 
keep tab on the salesmen, we have 
equipped ourselves with machinery for 
the proper distribution and sale of 
our fruits, which insures success. We 
have reason to believe from such reports 
as we have from points throughout the 
country, that our sales department is of 
the very best. It has been stated by those 
who are in position to know, that the or¬ 
ganization in this direction is five to six 
years ahead of the organization among 
the growers themselves. The weakest 
point in the organization, apparently, is 
