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Show ROADSIDE MARTS DO BIG BUSINESS Estimated $100,000,000 Paid Direct to Farmers for Produce Prod-uce This Season. Roadside markets have done a roaring business during this touring season and a conservative estimate places at $100,000,000 the produce that motorists will buy direct from the farmers in 1927. This estimate is based on reports from road cars of the A. A. A., and from many of the individual clubs of the National Motor federation. Reports Re-ports disclose that while roadside marketing has received more intensive inten-sive development in some states than in others, the growth of the movement Is essentially on a national scale. Business of Importance. "This is an aspect of the national business created by motoring that is assuming major importance," Thomas P. Henry, president of the American Automobile association, declared. "At the present rate of growth it should become a half-billion-dollar business within a few years." Mr. Henry called attention to the fact that in order for the farmer and his cash customers, the motorists from the city, to reap the full benefit from the facilities afforded by the roadside market, certain abuses had to be eliminated. elimi-nated. He said : "The farmers, as far as our reports Indicate, deal honestly with their clients, and it is not their fault if dishonest traders from the city rent comers at country crossroads and sell to unsuspecting motorists produce purchased in city markets, and at much higher prices than that produce could command in the city. This is still going on. but it can easily be eliminated if all the states follow the example of states such as New Jersey, Massachusetts. Rhode Island and others, in which roadside marketing market-ing associations have been set up. These organizations will not only increase in-crease business, but they will be able to eliminate the dishonest trader." Modify Farmers' Feeling. The A. A- A. executive believes that roadside trading has done much in the past few years to modify the lingering lin-gering antagonism of the farmers toward to-ward the city motorists. There is still, however, he says, room for improvement im-provement In their relations. |