The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1916-02-18
CITRUS EXCHANGE
49, SHOULD
MUZZLE THE GROWER
SHOULD
From THE ARCADIA ENTERPRISE

Ola ENTERPRISE
| Florida and intend to set out grove
there, called me up couple Of weeks
ago by phone and told me to come up
and see some of my beautiful coun-
Itry's fruit" Sarcastic sure). To my
horror never saw chestnut burrs as
green. He told me in theological
cuss words that this was his last year
to handle Florida oranges. With this
character of fruit in mind / meander-
ed over to the wholesale block to look
over the orange crop from Flrida. ]
found much of the same kind of fruit
in all houses except one, which abso-
lutely refuses to handle Florida or
anges. This is the third year. the
manager told me, the house did not
handle anything from Florida but
grapefruit. This house handles
mostly California oranges. At all
these places l tried to explain the diff
ference between Exchange fruit and
the independent shipper, but after the
same process year after year and the
market glutted with such fruit, what
does explanation amount to? Men
become prejudiced against all because
of the few. The way the thing looks
to me is this: You may spend thous-
ands of dollars in opening new mar.
kets, but unless the green fruit bust.
ness is stopped soon Florida will lose
the old markets. That is sure as the
sun shines. Merchants are not going
to be gulled all the time and the eat,
ing public are beginning to express a
preference. The name of my gro
ceryman is w. C. Bruning, and the
fruit he purchased was put up by A.
B. Williford. Publish the name, Mr..
Editor, for it is by such publicity that
honest people of Florida will find out
who the ones are that are destroy
ing their business. They ought to
be willing to take some Of their own
medicine. Florida oranges are re-
failing here by Jonas Longs Co. for
10 cents a dozen. That is a magni-
ficent outlook for the rest of the year,
isn't It'll p. Benninger.
On seeing the above letter in the
Grower, Mr.. Williford wrote to the
Godfrey Cawley Co., wholesale fruit
and produce dealers, Scranton, Pa,
and asked them to give him state
ment as to how the Circle w Oranges
(Williford's Brandy sold on the mar
ket and what their trade thought Of
this brand of fruit. Mr.. Williford re-
ceived the following reply which is a
very flattering report indeed:
Scranton, Pa, Jan. II, 1916.-A. B.
Williford, Arcadia, Fla. Dear SIR
We have your letter OF. the 18th to
hand and note all you have to say in
regard to your packing this season.
We must certainly say that the
you packed this year is far above any
thing we ever received from you. The
quality and color has been very fine
this season and our trade here GER
tainly have been well satisfied with
Circle w Oranges. We had few
other cars out of Florida and did not
have such good success with them.
The trade wants the Circle w. pack
ed by A. B. Williford, and when they
come to the store for oranges they
will not take anything else. 1t is
a forced sale to sell the other or
anges. 1t must be a pleasure for a
packer to get this kind of report
on his goods and we are telling you
the truth. You will find inclosed
list of signatures of the best gro
GERS in this section that handle your
fruit. We have also jobbed quite a
lot of oranges and you will find the
jobbers' names also enclosed. There
has been very few of the Florida CT
trus Exchange oranges sold in this
market this season. While they
have an agent here, about three cars
is all he sold in Scranton up to the
present time, and one of these cars
the Godfred- Cawley Company ham
died for him out of sympathy, as he
had not sold car up until we gave
him an order, and we did this be-
cause he was down-hearted, so that
you can readily see that we kept
them guessing and the reason we did
so was because your goods were su-
perior to theirs. The writer of the
little piece in the Florida Grower has
not been able to hurt us very much
and we have not heard from him at
all and we have had no complaints
on what oranges we sold in Scranton.
A knocker don't hurt very much any
way-sometimes he helps and it
must be so in our case as we have
sold more F,crida oranges in Scran-
ton this season than all the whole
salers put together.
In regard to Mr.. j. P. Benninger,
we think it would be well for him to
first be able to Judge fruit before
making any comments on same. In
his article he said Scranton was
glutted with this kind of fruit.
Scranton has not been glutted this
season, and the fruit he refers to,
sold by Jonas Longs Sons, was
bought in New York, and was Por-
to Rico fruit, and 10 cents per dozen
was a good price, and the dealer
that had it was tickled to death to
be able to clean up at that price.
l personally had talk with the man.
ager, and he told me that he bought
this fruit so that he would have