Marketing Fruit. 77 



nothing pays better than to cater to this demand for the best. Even the 

 most careless grower has some good fruit and it will be money in his 

 pocket to pack and seil that little by itself. A prominent eastern horti- 

 cuUiirist who came out here to learn our methods went home and said, 

 "that the.western growers had learned that two good apples are worth 

 more tban two good apples with two poor ones thrown in." This is 

 undeniably true even if we have not all learned it yet. 



It is not alone the waste of time and material in packing but it means 

 the demoralization of our markets to dump great quantities of stuff on 

 the market that should have gone to the cannery, evaporator, eider mills 

 or the pig pen. That is the ti'o'uble with the local markets at the present 

 time; there is so much poor stuff being offered at a low price that there 

 is not a healthy, active demand for good fruit. 



We must have more facilities for utilizing the fruits that are not 

 fit for the market in the fresh stage. Every fruit growers' union must 

 provide itself with a canning and evaporating plant with eider presses 

 and vinegar tanks and a cold storage warehouse. Then the fruit can be 

 graded as it comes in and handled accordingly; if prices are right, the 

 best can be placed upon the market, and the overripe and culls be canned, 

 dried or made into vinegar as its condition will Warrant. If advisable 

 the cold storage warehouse will furnish storage while waiting for prices 

 to adjust themselves. We simply must be in shape to take care of all 

 the crop, so that none shall be wasted, nor any unfit fruit be forced 

 upon the market for lack of other means of disposing of it. And we 

 must be able to störe and hold our fruit if the markets are not in good 

 condition. At present we are too much at the mercy of the buyers; 

 every well informed grower knows that apples should be bringing better 

 prices and meeting with readier sale than they are at present, but many 

 of the large dealers lost money last year, so they claim, in buying, and 

 this year have industriouslv peddled stories of great yield, over-produc- 

 tion, etc., and have refused to buv heavily, knowing that the growers had 

 not facilities for storing and must force the crop on the market. If ever 

 we are to have anything to say as to the prices our fruit shall bring, we 

 must be able to control it until the consumer is readv for it. 



The success of the fruit industry of the Northwest for the future 

 depends entirely upon the way in which we meet and solve this question 

 of marketing. We can produce the fruit and will produce it in ever 

 increasing quantities, provided it can be sold profitably. Manifestly it is 

 beyond the abilitv of any grower, local dealer, or local fruit union to 

 reach out very far in the development of new markets, or of increasing 

 our sales in our present markets. At present the different districts of 

 the Northwest, whose interests are identical, as our export fruits must 

 reach the same markets, are competing with each other instead of cooper- 

 ating as they should do to prevent the glutting of certain markets, and 

 the ruinous cutting of prices. The Northv/est Fruit Exchange, recently 

 organized in Portland is working along the right lines and has been of 

 great benefit this vear in the working up of new and untried markets. 

 This movement must be perfected and controlled more exclusively by the 

 growers. 



We have much to learn from the orange growers of California who 

 have organized their business so well that oranges are found on sale in 

 the most remote crossroads villages all over the land, and their fruit is 

 the most stable in price of any on the market. In addition to their well 

 organized central selling agency. thev have recently established an orange 

 auction sales department at Los Angeles where oranges are sold daily to 

 the highest bidder. This plan is said to be working extremely well. 



We must have a strong local union at every shipping point in the 

 Northwest, which union shall have absolute and exclusive control of 



