The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1873-04-26
COOPERATION NEEDED.


The season of speculation has arrived
when the peach crop of the Peninsula is
annually pronounced the greatest Of all
preceding years and a dead failure. The
severe cold of the past Winter has given
the prophets of bad results unusual data
for predicting total failure of the crop of
the present year. But SO many contingent
cies serve to make up the causes that pro-
duce bountiful crops and dire failures, that
tho prophets on both sides are oftener
found to be false than true in their predic-
tions.
But as matters have turned out with the
peach growers of late years, it would seem
to be matter ofsmall Importance to them,
in a pecuniary point of view, whether the
peach crop is an abundant one or total
failure. The heaviest crops have served to
increase the expenses of their owners and
bring them more in debt latterly; the mid
die men or "huckters, :" who purchase all
that reaches the wharves and depots, gen.
orally reap the entire profits of the crop;
the owner often finding himself, after his
pickers have been paid, poorer for his great
wealth of luscious fruit. Although the
owners, under the prevailing system, are
compelled mostly to part with their peach
es at Just what the middle men determine
to give-which is very often less than the
cost of freight and picking-yet, basket
of fair peaches can seldom b bought in
the Philadelphia retail market for less than
a $3.50 to $500. The "huckster or mid
die man has perhaps paid fifty cents-often
twenty-five cents-at the wharf few
hours before; and with little or no risk,
expense for transportation, or loss of time,
he, by combination is enabled to reap abso-
lutely all the profit there is in the peach
crop. Indeed those smart middle men
often pocket more than the actual profit of
the CROP for what the farmer realizes,
fails in numerous instances, to pay his
expenses of shipment and picking, much
less the interest on his land invested, and
with reasonable remuneration for neces-
sary labor and attention.
This state Of affairs has been growing
worse, from year to year, with no prospect
of mending, without thorough revision
of the system on which farmers conduct
their business. A congress of the peach
growers of New Jersey, Delaware and
Maryland might, we think, devise an effec-
tual remedy, by adopting rules under
which the entire peach business should be
conducted. The crop would have to be
placed in the hands of their own agents in
the cities who should be peach growers,
and sufficiently numerous and trustworthy
to control the wholesale price Of the
fruit, and regulate the supply to the de-
mands of the retail market. The quantity
of fruit required for the next days market
could be determined every evening and
apportioned fairly through the different
sections of the peach shipping districts,
and by communicating by telegraph with
all the principal shipping points. glut in
the market would be avoided, by holding
back the surplus above the market re-
qurements.
A congress of peach growers, who would
take their own affairs in hand, and set
about remedying the evil intelligently
could certainly greatly advance the inter-
ests of the peach business, and put into their
own pockets, where it rightly belongs, the
large profits which city middle men make
out of their toll, care and capital. We
know what great amount Of ignorant
pig medicines exists among farmers, but
combination of intelligent men would
be able to control the freights, and by that
means prevent gluts in the market when
the fruit season is at its hight, to the ad-
vantage of every man engaged in the bust
ness. By having entire control of the sup
ply and sale to stall owners in the markets,
fair profit could be realized by every
peach grower, for the consumption of
peaches in the numerous cities and towns
within reach of the peach districts, in a
few hours by rail, is almost beyond COM
putation, and every year increasing. 9th
er industries are regulated in similar
manner, and through their own chosen
agents: why could not our farmers as well,
especially in product confined to COM
paratively small area as the peach growing
is?
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