Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1870-12-08
Marketing Produce

THE most successful farmers and gar
deners adopt the axiom, that any article of
produce, whether grain, fruit or vegetable,
we'll prepared for market, is half sold. 1t
is one of the fine arts of farming and gar
dening to put produce up in the most at
tractive and useful condition An excel
lent article of wheat, mixed with chess,
cookie and straw, viii with great difficulty
find a purchaser in market, then will be
knocked down to the lowest grade; but if
1t had been properly cleaned would have
been taken at once at the highest figure.
Corn is often taken to market unsorted
with the expectation of realizing, by dint
of an INSCRIPTIONS deception, as much for
soft corn and nubbins as for sound, full
grown ears. So with potatoes, turnips and
vegetables. In putting up apples for mar
ket there has been more deception used
than in the marketing of any other article,
perhaps The grossest and meanest cheat
ing that ever shocked the sense of honest
people is every year seen by apple buyers.
There is less of it practiced in the sale of
other fruits, for the reason that they are
not hid from sight. Confidence in up
rightness of farmers in general, has of late
years been greatly lessened by the practice
of which we are speaking.
There is nothing gained by these detest-
able practices. On the contrary, there is a
decided loss in every way. The chess and
cookie and small wheat are well worth all
it costs to separate them from the grain,
fer feeding to stock So are small potatoes
and soft corn worth the sorting. They add
but little to the measurement, but they
greatly diminish the marketable value of
the good articles. The buyer has no use
for them, and don't want the trouble of
them.
John Knox gets fifty to seventy five
cents quart for strawberries, but they are
not mixture Of small and large, perfect
and imperfect berries. They are carefully
assorted and put up in neat boxes-the
largest, medium and smallest in separate
classes. In this way no one is cheated
Each one buys the grade he thinks best fol
his means or purposes, and the transaction
is fair. If he chooses to give dollar fol
quart of strawberries, or twelve cents foI
quart, he knows what he is buying and
is not cheated So Mr.. Knox's fruit and
manner of marketing is celebrated the
country over. This runs into the prepar-
ing of all kinds of farm and garden pro-
duce.
1t is sometimes surprising to see, in the
markets of our large cities, how few there
are among the hucksters and truck dealers
who seem to know just how to prepare
their articles for sale. There are always
few stands or wagons which are crowded
with customers, attracted by the excellence
of the vegetables or fruit, and the careful
manner in which they are put up, while
others, with equally as good articles, can
not get the eye Of customer, because they
are not assorted, or are tumbled in heller
skelter-apples and potatoes and onions
and cucumbers and squashes and beets and
carrots and corn and greens-altogether
and they stand there half day in the sun
and are obliged TO sell out at reduced
rate or return with them next day. There
is great need of reform in these things
and if it could be brought about everybody
would be benefted-sellsr a. we'll as
buyer Detroit Tribune.