Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1912-09-03
BROWNSVILLE DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1919

3, 1912
public demands u produce, and
will come after ID and pay a fair
price for it here just so o as we
quit the unbusinesslike suicidal
plan of delivering it to them. ]
grant you some money has been
made in spots by his plan. but moth
ing to compare with the losses, and
nothing to what will be made when
we get down to cash on track sales.
Another most valuable feature OF
cash on track sales would be the
stopping Of the competition Of our
own products against each other in
the same markets. This goes on an
nually in the onion business and to
a less extent in some others, but is
also very prevalent in movements by
eynress even from the same shipping
point. No one but the middlemen
benefits in this for I note the con-
sumner generally pays about the same.
In my humble judgment. during
the years 1910 and 1911 when. on
account Of the severe frost, etc. the
Texas Bermuda onion crop was cut
from 40 to 80 per cent, had the cast
iron rule been made that not a car
OF Texas Bermuda onions would
cross the Lone Star State line until
they were paid for, every marketable
onion would have been sold at the
loading station. but, so long as the
buyer knows we must run to him, ne
will s.a at home to receive them
and pay for them according to the
degree of honesty he possesses.
Cash Buyer Has Rights. Too.
However, if we are to do cash on
track business we must remember
also that the cash buyer has his
| rights. When he has bought from
US on track at our W price any
| commodity, he is entitled TO our pro-
| lection, or we will drive him from
our market for that year and all the
time. We must not then follow him
into his home market with con-
signed cars to compete against those
for which he has paid us cash. Pick
ing his pockets would be just as
legitimate. If he finds us honest
with him in this regard, he can buy
from us just as safely at u sta
ton as his. but to make this feasible
it is absolutely necessary that the
| controlling marketing features in
all districts producing like vege-
tables It the same time work In har-
mony and not, as is too often the
case, with a knife OUT
Why have we seen in the last 10
or Is years one after the other of
the fruit and vegetable growing dis
tricts organizing along the lines Of
cash on track sales? Let us enum-
crate one or two of them and see if
there is no lesson for us to learn. In
the late nineties the strawberry
crops from Arkansas, Mississippi and
! Missouri were all being shipped to
the northern and other markets to
I, recognized agents, commission men
on consignment. and the growers
were getting such returns as their
agents chose to send them, but the
growers were getting wise to the re-
turns were not in proportion to the
sales and were following their cars
to the markets and watching results.
They went back and reported to their
local associations that, when berries
were being sold at such prices In the
consuming markets that they should
have received net from $40 to SO
from $3.50 to 50 that they were only
getting from $3.50 to 50 and from
75c to 81 and OFTEN nothing, and
within three years all berries in
those states where the growers were
organized were being sold for cash
on track, or draft bill Of lading at
tackled, and this rapidly spread to
other districts and other berries.
| know whereof | speak because
I was employed In a commission
house in st. Paul, Mimi, during
CONTINUED on mage four.)