The Fruit Business from a Commercial Standpoint. 217 



not bring enough more to pay for the extra trouble. The berries we get here are 

 all right. But you Hood Kiver people should put your fruit in as attractive 

 shape as you can for every market. 



After the strawberries come the cherries, and cherries are a good deal of 

 trouble to the commission man for the reason that there are not enough to 

 market in large quantities, and too many for the local market. The cherries 

 are more delicious and finer than they are anywhere In the United States — of 

 a better flavor, and should command the very best market. There was a lady 

 friend of mine who went back east to visit her old home and old friends, and 

 she was at supper — they have tea there in the village at G o'clock, instead of 

 our dinner — and they had some fruit on the table which she though was very 

 nice, and she passed her dish back a second time and said she would thank 

 them for some more of those cherries, that they were very nice, and they told 

 her they were not cherries at at all, but plums. They were about the size of 

 our cherries. During her absence she had forgotten about the size of the plums. 

 About two years ago there was a buyer here buying cherries and packing them 

 in some kind of a liquid and shipping them back to Cincinnati to be made into 

 what are called Marashino cherries. You can see them in the fancy groceries 

 here, or wholesale liquor stores and saloons. They are used for cocktails and. 

 I think, candied fruit. Those should be prepared here instead of in the East. 



Then come our peaches. Of course, the majority of those we get here come 

 from Ashland, with some from Roseburg and IMyrtle Point, and in through 

 there. The Roseburg peaches are badly affected with dry-rot : they are beauti- 

 ful looking peaches, look fine when unloaded, but tomorrow morning, and with- 

 out being soft, they are covered with dry-rot, which does not even dampen 

 the paper. We have a great deal of trouble with them. The Roseburg people 

 have, of course, put down the Portland commission men as robbers, and have 

 for a good many years, but if they will come here and watch these peaches 

 they will change their mind on those things. I was reading in a fruit journal 

 some time ago that the peaches in Georgia were affected with dry-rot. The 

 growers experimented with spraying, and those trees that were sprayed were 

 not affected nearly as much as those that were not sprayed. I think the peach 

 growers in Roseburg, and points further north, should experiment with that 

 thing. They should do something to protect their fruit, because it seems a 

 shame to have so much delicious fruit come to this market and have no value 

 to the growers. I want to speak about the Ashland Association. They supply 

 this market with the principal quantity of peaches that are used here, and 

 their peaches are certainly very nice. They have got, now, so that they are 

 grading them and putting them up uniformly, and we know when a box is 

 marked "P" that they are "P'ancy," marked "A" that they are No. 1, marked 

 "B"they are No. 2, and marked "C" they are No. S. The packing, I imagine, 

 is under the supervision of some superintendent who looks to the grade and 

 quality. As a result they give good satisfaction, and when a car is shipped 

 from Ashland you know it is going through and will be received at its desti- 

 nation and bring good prices. It is seldom a car of Ashland peaches is rejected, 

 because the fruit is all right and you can depend upon it. 



Then come the plums and prunes, and with these it is the same as with 

 the cherries — there are too many and yet not enough. 



Then come the pears. I think pears are the hardest thing the commis- 

 sion men have to market, and they hate to see the pear season come in. The 

 Bartletts come in green — today they are green and tomorrow ripe and ready for 

 use and the next day they are rotten. If you do not sell them the day you 

 receive them they are lost. There are a great many pears shipped east. I think 

 Medford markets most of its crop in the East, and they realize handsome 

 prices. Our firm has never undertaken to ship any, and I do not think we ever 

 will. We have troubles enough here, locally, in disposing of what we get, and 

 I do not think we will ever undertake to ship any carloads east. 



Grapes are grown here in a way, successfully, and, in a way, not. The 



