One of my favorite business stories starts with a Florida orange grove that sold a boxcar of this golden crop to a food broker in Chicago.

Before it reached the Windy City, the Chicagoan resold the cargo to one of his peers, in Albuquerque, and that fellow rerouted it to someone in Eugene, Oregon.

By the time the Oregonian opened the railway car, the oranges had mostly spoiled, so fuming, he phoned the fellow in Albuquerque, and said: