The Fruit Business from a Commercial Standpoint. 215 



presume, it does not seem interesting to us, and that there is nothing about 

 the business that we can tell the fruitgrowers. They all know how fruit is 

 shipped to the commission men, taken in by them and disposed of by them to 

 the best advantage, the returns made out and the check, or the red figures, 

 sent to the consignor ; how he kicks — always, no matter what he may get for 

 it — he always complains. But those details, I suppose, have all been gone over 

 by different speakers before the Association who are old in the business, and it 

 has been dwelt upon by speakers more capable of giving you a lucid idea 

 of the way the fruit is marketed, than I can. But speaking of the shippers 

 finding fault with the returns, I am inclined to think the shippers are more to 

 blame than the commission man ; he takes the fruit and disposes of it for what 

 it will bring. Sometimes we have a false idea of the value of fruit and we place 

 too high a price on it. It looks nice, and we think it should bring a high 

 price, but it stays on the sidewalk for awhile, until we think something is 

 wrong. Evidently the price is too high, so we are compelled to drop the price : 

 by this time it has gotten soft, we have to call in the peddlers and it goes for 

 anything they have a mind to offer us for it. That is one of the peculiarities 

 in marketing fruit in a small way by the commission man. He should have 

 gotten a good deal better price, but perhaps because the conditions are a little 

 wrong, the market overstocked, or his idea of the values too high, the result is 

 he does not get the price he should get. If he put the price where it ought to 

 have been he would have sold it more readily. That is one of the reasons why 

 returns do not come up to the consignor's expectation. 



In regard to packing fruit. Too much cannot be said about the quality and 

 the way fruit should be packed. That is the most important thing in the whole 

 business. Now, you see tlaose apples over there from llood River, and it does 

 not take a salesman to sell them ; they sell themselves ; they are beautiful 

 apples, of uniform size, and all you have to do is to open up the box and a 

 man comes along and asks, "What are those apples worth?" and you tell him. 

 "Two dollars," and he buys them right off, and is glad to get them, but take the 

 same quality of apple and put them into a box. one a great big one and another 

 little one, put them in promiscuously, and it takes hard talking to get a man 

 to pay a dollar a box, though it may be just as perfect an apple and just as 

 bright and sound, yet. a man will not pay as much as for a uniform grade 

 and uniform pack. All the fruitgrowers are packing their apples now with a 

 great deal more care than they used to. They formerly put them in any old box 

 and sent them in and thought the commission man ought to get fancy prices 

 for that fruit. Even the small growers now know that they have to pack their 

 fruit more carefully to market it satisfactorily. There are some that have come 

 to realize that ; others think that an occasional wormy apple in a box does not 

 make much difference, that no one will notice it, but it is a peculiar thing, that 

 with one wormy apple in a box, in a Ittle while the whole box will be wormy. 

 It is much better for that man to throw away his wormy apples than to 

 take them to market and slide them in, thinking he is doing something cute 

 to slide in a few wormy ones. The man who puts his name upon a box of 

 fruit of any kind, and puts up a good, honest pack, will get a reputation for his 

 pack in a very short time, and all you have to do is to quote that brand of ap- 

 ples, or that brand of fruit, whatever it may be, and tlie people, everywhere. 

 know what it is, and it sells on the strength of the packer's name. That is a 

 well-known fact, and it is well illustrated by an example that we have here in 

 the onion business. This, of course, is not tlie fruit business, but you take 

 Fanno Bros., they are large producers, here, of onions. Fanno believes in using 

 a brand, they put their name on every sack and the date the onions are sacked, 

 that is all stencilled on each sack. The stock in the center of he sack is 

 just as good as the top, bottom or sides — it is uniform throughout, there is no 

 stove-piping, as is very often the case with unprincipled shippers. The result 

 is that Fanno Bros, get more for their onions than any other shipper anywhere 

 In this Northwest, not because their onions are better, but because every one 



