“‘We are sending you a Home Hamper to-day by express. It is full of fresh stuff, and we hope you will get it in time for dinner. We should like to have your opinion of it, and, incidentally, if you think it is worth $1.50, we would be glad to have the $1.50. If you do not, please accept it with our compliments—and no harm done!’
“Then we waited for returns. Every one of the seven sent us the dollar fifty and several customers besides. For each hamper we sent out first, we received three and a half customers in return—and the cash came with each order. Apparently we were filling a long-felt want.
“Here was a business started in one day. Within three years we were able to sell all that was raised on two of the company’s farms. After eight years other Long Island farmers took it up, and truck raisers around such cities as Chicago, Philadelphia and St. Louis.”
“How did you figure your profits?” inquired Mr. Larry.
“That was easy,” answered Mr. Fullerton. “The express company got twenty-five cents out of the dollar and fifty cents. Boxes, nails, tags and green paraffin paper, to keep out dust during shipment, amounted to twenty-seven cents more. The vegetables, therefore, brought ninety-eight cents. In order to learn exactly what we gained by using the Home Hamper over the regular commission channel, we received for an equal amount of vegetables shipped in bulk, and of the same quality, from four cents to eight cents—an average of six cents through the commission man, as against ninety-eight cents from the consumer.
“And do you mean to say that all of your customers are satisfied?” asked Teresa Moore.
Mr. Fullerton’s eyes twinkled.
“Well—hardly. If a woman didn’t want cauliflower or kohl-rabi she would write as if we had committed an unpardonable crime in sending her any. Again, some city folks were so used to hard dry vegetables, like peas and beans, that they thought there wasn’t much to our tender juicy vegetables. But most of them appreciated the freshness of the green stuff, packed in the morning and received by them before night. The lettuce still had the morning dew on it; tomatoes and melons were ripened on the vine, peaches on the tree, instead of being picked green and ripened in a car during a three- or five-day railroad trip.
“As to the saving for the consumer—by checking up on our correspondence, we find that it ranged from sixty-five cents to three dollars a hamper, according to the markets formerly patronized by our customers, and also according to their ability as marketers.