FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT. 99, 



There is no (luestion whatever of the advisability of i»re-cooling 

 peaches for shipment to any market. 



The greatest losses snstained by growers have been due to improper 

 refrigeration and absolutely inexcusable transportation service furnish- 

 ed by the railroad companies. 



If cars are properly iced and cold, and the fruit is cold when loaded, 

 it will carry three times as far, thereby widening the distribution and 

 arrive in first class condition, usually with l)ut one re-icing. We have 

 our own ice plant at Morton, and ice our own cars, and try to have the 

 cars iced from 24 to 48 hours before they are loaded, so that they will 

 be absolutely cold — around 40 degrees — usually about 36, so that the 

 peaches, coming from the cold rooms where they have been held at 34 

 to 36 for two to four days, will not undergo any decided change in 

 temperature and will not "eat up" all the ice in the bunkers before the 

 car can reach the first iceing station. 



The past season we shipped cars of peaches as far as Tampa, Florida, 

 under these conditions successfully. 



Most fruit-growers are supposed to be in the business for profit, but 

 a lot of them, like Eip Van Winkle, have been asleep for twenty years, 

 and ma7iy T fear, never will wake up. 



The whole world has heard of the Hood River Valley of Oregon, and 

 the Wenatchee Valley of Washington. These people have been able to 

 overcome a freight handicap of -51.50 per barrel (figured as three boxes) 

 and a haul of three thousand miles, and sell their apples right here in 

 our midst Avhere the finest flavored apples in the world are grown, for 

 three and four times what we receive for ours. 



Co-operation is the thing that has done it. Elimination of every 

 needless expense, and a package that could be absolutely guaranteed. 



It is much cheaper to operate one large, efficient, convenient packing 

 ]dant in a community than thirty or fifty individual plants, and it is 

 absolutely the only way by which a standard, uniform pack can be 

 obtained. There is no experiment about it; it has been thoroughly tried 

 out and proven an unqualified success. 



It is not a question any longer of how to grow good fruit, or how 

 to increase the yield ; it is'a question of HOW TO SELL IT. 



The cost of production is increasing all the time and unless we adopt 

 a l)etter system, which guarantees an honest, uniform pack and keep 

 the ''cull" out of the package altogether, at the same time securing 

 each year better and wider distribution, prices will 'go down until we 

 reach a point where any chance for a reasonable return on our invest- 

 ment will vanish. 



The selling of fruit is a specialized industry and should be handled 

 by experts. 



We are really manufacturers — manufacturers of the world's food 

 supply — but unlike all other manufacturers, we have been blundering 

 along on the principle of every man for himself and the Devil take the 

 jiindmost. 



Imagine any other manufacturer going ahead an entire year in total 

 blindness and ignorance of what his expenses were or what his product 

 would bring; he does not do business that way — not much. 



