y4 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



If we can bring our organization up to 50% we have some control of the 

 situation and we can go ahead and advertise and standardize. As it 

 is there is but 20% with 80% offsetting it. You can't expect to sweep 

 off the ocean with a broom. 



Either we must organize so we control 50% of our produce or this 

 distribution game is going into the hands of a man with large finances. 

 This merchandizing proposition has gotten beyond the horse-trading 

 stage. The time when we could put anything on the buyer and get 

 away with it is past. Now we must follow our product to the consumer 

 and satisfy him. 



I am going to suggest something that I do not know will be agreed 

 with. If we are to put money that the other fellows are putting in adver- 

 tising into the cold storage plants in Michigan we will do more than that 

 other fellow who puts it into advertising. 



If we are going to grow late keeping varieties, it is up to us to deliver 

 that fruit to the buyer and assure him that it is going to keep until Feb- 

 ruary or March. 



We have been selling Chicago and other markets Baldwins and Spies 

 and with the expectation that they would keep until February or March 

 and they have had to repack them in December. Often the shrinkage 

 is so heavy that sawdust has to be placed on the floor to enable the work- 

 men to make conditions satisfactory. The men who buy that fruit 

 have lost money and they should not. Buyers who take the fruit from 

 our hands should profit by it. 



Reducing the temperature to a point where the ripening process is 

 stopped is going to do more than any other thing we can do just now. 



That cold storage proposition is an organization, which requires some 

 little capital. It is a proposition I think we can with justice ask our 

 canner friends to share, as they are going to be benefited as well as the 

 growers. 



If we consider the loss that we have had over a period of five years 

 on peaches, plums, pears and berries, we won't hesitate a moment, if we 

 have to go to the bank, to erect those coolers. I believe in addition 

 we need more cooperation between the canner and grower. The wrong 

 conception of the canner has been prevalent in Michigan today. The 

 grower thought the last dollar he could take out of the canner was good 

 business and the canner thought that the last dollar he could take out of 

 the grower was good business. Anything that hurts the canner, hurts 

 the grower, because the canning industry is thrown flat on its back from 

 loss which they sustained. They ought to get together on a fair basis 

 before hand. The canner, as a matter of fact, is a marketing agent of 

 the growers, and should be protected. They should get together and 

 have it definitely understood what they are going to do. 



There is a canning concern in St. Louis with the following slogan: 

 "We cannot succeed unless you prosper." The whole situation calls for 

 greater organization and growers' cooperation. Some pooh-pooh the 

 idea of organization. They think organization will fail. There is no 

 question but what organization has advanced the fruit agency more than 

 all others. 



The fact that Wall Street has its eye on the growing farming interests 

 is something to consider. When those fellows wake up and are inter- 

 ested in what is going on. you can make up your mind it means some- 

 thing. 



