272 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



have grown worse rather than better since that time. Tremendous 

 stocks of fruit are still held in storage, particularly New York, 

 Baldwins and boxed apples from the north and west. Both of these 

 classes of fruit are selling already at prices that cannot show profit 

 to the grower. Baldwins at |1.75 per barrel, with 87 cents charges; 

 large western Staymans and Rome Beauty at |1.25 per box, with 

 82 cents charges, hardly can pay the cost of production. 



Three prime causes have entered into this condition. First, the 

 crop has been more than liberal throughout the whole country, with 

 a few minor exceptions, more than one-half greater than 1913, and 

 even a little more than the heavy crop of 1912. Second, the war in 

 Europe, both directly by cutting off exports to Germany, and in- 

 directly, by taking so many vessels out of trade that shipping facili- 

 ties to England are unusually poor, has seriously crippled foreign 

 trade in apples. To be sure, a good many apples have gone to Lon- 

 don, Liverpool and Glasgow and have brought fair prices there, but 

 only limited space has been available on refrigerator steamers and 

 ordinary space has proven very unsafe for apples, for they have both 

 frozen and overheated while crossing. So while the prices reported 

 from the other side have been fair, some of the net returns have 

 been very disappointing. Third, it is very doubtful whether the 

 large crop and the loss of export trade combined would have had 

 such serious results if our own country's industries had been going 

 full blast, all hands working full time with lots of money to spend. 

 Some of these things are beyond our control, but I have felt that a 

 survey of them was worth while at this time, in the light of a few 

 things we can do to help the future of the apple industry. 



Here are a few points that need most careful consideration. We 

 are right now facing the results of "over planting," all of which we 

 have been talking for years. To what extent are we, each one of us, 

 responsible for this over production? Have we spoken conservatively 

 of our business when asked, or have we gone about boasting of the 

 splendid returns and the eaise with which we have secured them? It 

 is an absolute fact that thousand of men have planted hundreds of 

 thousands of fruit trees for the one reason that they have been 

 unintentionally deceived as to the golden harvest to be reaped. Some 

 of these trees will die of neglect, some of them have died. Many of 

 them are alive and bearing fruit. Let us take this lesson seriously 

 to ourselves. If we speak of returns, make sure that we speak in 

 terms of net, not gross, amounts. Imagine if you can, a manufac- 

 turer of silks, shoes or automobiles, boasting of the profits of his 

 business to the end that his hearers will wish to become his com- 

 petitors. The cases are nearly parallel. 



And this leads us to my second point. What do we know about 

 cost of production? How many of us know what a bushel of apples 

 really does cost. How long would a large manufacturing enterprise 

 continue to live under severe competition without rigidly figuring 

 all costs? In the season just passed, competition has been keen, 

 business conditions have been dull, and unless we have learned to 

 figure down the cost, we have lost money. 



My third point has to do with an entirely different matter, and yet 

 it may touch us as closely as either of these. This seems to be the 

 age of legislation. Our legislative mills grind out a never-ending 

 grist of laws — some good, some bad — ^but we must be governed by 



