“Among those to whom we shipped, we found seven speculators, men who never handled or saw the goods. One man sold immediately to another firm, which proved to be his wife; another man secured three commissions by selling produce to the greengrocers through two other ‘firms’--one was his wife, the other his nine-year-old son. You see, in case of any trouble he could actually show two sales. “We found men who had no offices, who had no bank account for their business, who had no clerks, who had absolutely no expenses, but who were making big money off the producer and the consumer. One man had an elegant home in Brooklyn and a beautiful summer place in Maine. He owned a steam yacht and three automobiles, but he did not contribute one single cent to the upkeep of New York City, in which he did his business, nor to New York State. He was not even paying a license as an ordinary peddler would have to do. He did not have to file any statement of his financial returns with the state treasurer, as other business concerns do--yet he was getting enormously rich on his commissions. He was one of the men who had promised us to sell at the best prices which grocers were paying, minus the commission. And our returns were six or eight cents a _bushel_ for tomatoes! “To see produce come in from various outlying states and to watch it handled on the docks, we had to stay up nights, but we got what we wanted--reliable figures and data. We knew then that there was no money for the Long Island farmer whose produce was handled by the New York commission merchant. He could sell it better in any other city. “The next proposition was to do away with the commission man and reach the consumer direct. Mrs. Fullerton and I happened to run across a package or carrier which held six four-quart boxes. We decided that we would fill one box with potatoes, one with tomatoes, one with sweet corn, one with lima beans, one with beets. The remaining box should hold a combination--parsley, radishes, asparagus, and later in the season, cantaloupe, raspberries, strawberries or other fruits. Then we christened the ‘Home Hamper.’ “We picked out seven New York men, each of whom we knew to have families. To each of these went a hamper, with a letter something like this: * * * * * “‘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.