Sum liter Meeting'. 1^3 



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a necessary food product, as it is now generally recognized, the demand 

 on tliis continent alone is sufficient to satisfy the most exacting, and when 

 v;e look over the large export trade and consider the demands abroad 

 for American apples the cry of "over-production," so alarming at first, 

 sounds faint when it is actually tried before the great law of supply and 

 demand. The great difficulty does not lie in over-production, but in un- 

 wise distribution. 



It is in the field of distribution that the apple grower's business 

 judgment is taxed to the utmost. Even after the crop sets and begins 

 to show up well on the tree no man can .say with absolute assurance 

 whether he should sell on the tree in July, by the barrel in September or 

 pick, pack, place in cold storage and wait for better prices. 



In this section the commonest way of disposing of the crop is to sell 

 on the tree, either by the barrel or in the lump, a month or two before the 

 season of ripening. This method has some very evident advantages. It 

 relieves the grower of all worry and responsibility attending picking and 

 packing, and ofters ready pay for the season's work. But in such sales 

 the crop is nearly always underestimated and the prevailing prices at 

 picking time are usually much to the advantage of the buyer. At best 

 this manner of selling can allow the grower only an approximate value 

 for his crop and is a rathef crude way of trying to realize its worth. 



A better way, if good business sagacity is exercised, is to hold the 

 ■crop until maturity and then sell by the barrel on the tree, or pick, pack 

 and prepare for market on one's own responsibility. The latter method 

 is the only one that brings the grower face to face with the question of dis- 

 tribution, and if energetically and intelligently carried out, is without 

 doubt the most profitable in the long run. The grower then receives 

 full advantage of whatever rise in price th.e advancing season may bring» 



I and he is not forced to place his entire crop on one market or dispose 

 of the whole at one price. The first question that faces the man who 



j expects to hold and distribute his own crop relates to the matter of stor- 

 ing. As a rule, the ordinary grower has no storage of his own adequate 

 to keeping apples through the entire selling season. In such a case the 

 only thing left for him to do is to place his. crop in the nearest reliable 

 cold storage establishment. The following months are spent in closely 

 observing the markets and carefully settling upon points of most profita- 



:| ble disposal. There are no localities that are always marked by a sur- 



• I passing demand for apples; the strongest demand flits about from place 

 to place with the scarcity of crop, and with our varied means of trans- 

 portation this demand is soon equalized so that a short crop in a certain 



j section does not necessarily mean a strong market. All the exigencies 

 that attend the law of supply and demand must be met, and the great 



