The parcel-post service has been very successful in handling packages of produce even as large as a case of eggs. The post-office department allows its carriers to pick up and deliver packages along the route the same as letter mail. Privately owned Rural Motor Express vehicles are also operated successfully which pick up and deliver all sorts of express packages, farm produce in small quantities, fruit, butter, eggs, and cream. Trucks which haul nothing but milk and cream are quite common. The farmer leaves his full cans of milk or cream at a specified place, usually a platform at a level with the truck floor, on the roadway. The driver of the milk truck picks up the full cans, leaving empties in their place. Or he may pick up the full on his way to the market, creamery, or railway station, and leave the empties on his return. Such routes are both privately owned and coöperatively owned by the several farmers patronizing them. Often these trucks deliver the milk and cream to the railway in time to catch a special milk train into the city. [Illustration: HAULING BEANS BY MOTOR TRUCK AND TRAILER Sacramento Valley, Calif.] [Illustration: HAULING SUGAR BEETS TO MARKET IN A MOTOR TRUCK] Since the trucks come directly to the farmer’s gate to pick up and deliver express or freight, the convenience is much greater than the service given by either the steam railway or the interurban trolley. As a result the trucks will probably be patronized when the railways would not. The habit of sending eggs, cream, and other perishable products daily to the market is formed. The daily credit the farmer receives amounts to a considerable sum by the end of the month when he collects from the dealer. Many farmers much more than pay living expenses from the sale of small items utterly ignored before the days of the motor express.[169] Even the farmer who owns his own truck could hardly afford a daily trip of several miles and the time entailed to market small amounts of cream, eggs, vegetables, and fruits, but the express man by combining the incoming and outgoing commodities of many farms can without much expense to anyone do a very good business for himself at an economic benefit to his patrons.