WINTER MEETING. 251 



The time is coming, and is at hand now, for confining ourselves to 

 specialties. There is room for the American apple abroad, but I have 

 shipped apples abroad from the State of Missouri with very bad results. 

 I have exported apples to England and lost money on them. Market- 

 ing fruit is a business in itself. I think the farmers in the long ran 

 will be the gainer by having their fruit shipped for them by men who 

 know the business. You will also find it necessary to care for your 

 fruit as it ripens : that is, by cold storage in September and October, 

 and when the time comes you can market it. All the markets were 

 glutted this year untill three or four weeks ago. The South was badly 

 overstocked this fall in September and October. At this time there is 

 a great demand from that section which we can not supply. I predict 

 that the profitable way will be to have a cold storage system in every 

 fruitgrowing community. We could hold apples, such as Jonathan 

 and Rambo, in good condition. They have largely gone to waste this 

 year. 



As to every farmer doing his own shipping, what is the result ? A 

 glutted market. You are often misled by the circulars of commis- 

 sion men from the large cities. When you get the returns and pay the 

 expenses, there is little left for you. Association of shippers, as a 

 rule, don't work right. Every member of the association packs his 

 own fruit, so there is no uniformity in the packing. There is an asso- 

 ciation in southern Illinois that permits its members to pick their own 

 fruit, and they ship in car load-lots. At the other end the commission 

 man would be lost as to what to do with a car-load of mixed fruit. 

 Suppose he had an order for a car-load of strictly fancy fruit; the car 

 would not fill the bill and he would have to unload the car and sell it 

 in small lots. 



Try to pack uniformly — just as good apples in the middle of the 

 barrel as on the face. We have practiced too much deception in pack- 

 ing fruit. This is also true of small fruit. Good packing will pay in 

 the long run. In the last two months I have had an experience that I 

 had not met before. We started out with the idea that the apple crop 

 wag a failure, and paid fair prices. They commenced going down. I 

 found competition with Canadian apples. I was compelled to sell Ben 

 Davis in the New Orleans market for $1.65 a barrel at quite a loss, for 

 I had paid $1.20 for them in orchard, furnished barrels and paid the 

 freight. Canada apples were very low; the late tariff law put them 

 practically upon the free list. As soon as I discovered this I had to 

 pay the grower less for his fruit. For fruit of good size, good quality 

 and good measure, there is a market for all you can produce. 



