btedly there are many
scoundrels among them, as they have shippers almost completely at
their mercy. The best method under our present system is to choose an
honest commission man in the city where you sell, to get acquainted
with him, to let him know that your trade will be in his hands only so
long as he treats you fairly, and then supply him with as good quality
of stuff as you can produce. This plan has worked out well with many
successful growers and marketers.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty to be overcome in successfully finding
good markets is that of proper distribution. As has been pointed out
in the previous chapter, there has been a great increase in the
production of apples and hence in competition, accompanied by
speculation and more intensive methods in all phases of the business.
A necessity has arisen for the production of the best at a minimum
cost, as well as for finding the best market for that product. In the
rush for the best market every seller is apt to be guided only by his
own immediate interest without due regard for the fact that others are
acting in the same way or that there is a future. The result is the
piling up of fruit in a market of high quotations, and a subsequent
drop in the price. Then all turn from such a market to a better one
with the result that a famine often results where but a few weeks or
even days before there had been a feast.

Thus it often happens that one market may have more fruit than it can
possibly dispose of at the time, while another, perhaps equally good,
goes begging. Such conditions are ruinous to trade. Growers are
disappointed and ascribe the cause to the commission man. Consumers
are unable many times to profit by a glut in the market but promptly
blame the middleman or the grower when the supply is small and the
price high.

Other difficulties with our system of marketing are non-uniformity of
the grades, the packages, or the fruit itself. There should be a clear
definition of just what "firsts" and "seconds" are and this definition
rigidly adhered to. Transportation is too frequently insufficient, not
rapid enough, especially when perishable fruit is shipped in small
lots, and usually at a too high rate. There are undoubtedly too many
middlemen between producer and consumer. Growers sell to local dealers
who sell to wholesalers at the receiving end. These sell to
wholesalers at the consuming end, who may sell to jobbers, who sell to
retailers. Each