108 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



COOPERATION IN MARKETING FRUIT. 



SECRETARY CHAS. E. BASSETT^ FENNVILLE. 



The need of cooperation depends upon three conditions in the state 

 that must be remedied. One is poor fruit, another poor packing, and 

 third, the lack of any systematic distribution. These are the conditions 

 which face the Michigan fruit grower. 



Unless we can improve our growing system by producing better fruit 

 than we have been doing, we will always be up against it. But with the 

 fruit we have, our packing conditions are not what they should be. Our 

 fruit must be packed better than it is packed; more care taken. Then, 

 even with good fruit and rightly packed, unless we can improve the dis- 

 tribution of our fruit, the future looks bad for the Michigan fruit 

 growers. But as one who has faith in the ability of the Michigan fruit 

 growers to improve these conditions and remove these obstacles, I will 

 offer a few suggestions. 



I think that in practically all of the letters that have come into the 

 office of the secretary, with suggestions as to what must be done to im- 

 prove our conditions, almost every person suggests that we should 

 change from the barrel to the box. I thought so when I first began to 

 weigh the situation, but just let me drop this thought here, the trouble 

 with the Michigan fruit, and Michigan sales of fruit, does not depend 

 upon the package primarily. It is not what we use to put the fruit into, 

 but it is the fruit itself that is packed into the package that is import- 

 ant. The western people were forced by their distance from market to 

 market nothing but the very best, and they used the box, and because the 

 fruit in the box was all right, a good name has been created for the 

 hox, but do not think for a minute, my friends, that the box would have 

 won favor if the fruit had not been packed in it that the public de- 

 manded, and for which they were willing to pay a good price. In other 

 words, it was not the package, but what was in the package, that won the 

 good name. I have seen this thing in our own vicinity when marketing 

 in fancy packages. I remember one — a 20-lb. bail package, was a good 

 package for fancy fruit, and in a way we adopted it, but in a short time 

 some fellow — and I will not say that I was not that one, put fruit in 

 those packages that was not first class, was not strictly fancy, and today 

 that package is no better than any other package. So I say you will 

 never create a demand for Michigan apples by adopting a certain pack- 

 age unless that package contains good fruit. 



Nevertheless, this matter of packing must receive our serious con- 

 sideration, and after the fruit is packed properly, then it must be dis- 

 tributed to the consumer, so that every man, woman and child who wants 

 it can get it in sufficient quantities to supply the demiand, and in such 

 shape and condition that when he has had one package, he will go back 

 for another. These are problems that must be worked out, and never 

 until they are satisfactorily solved will we succeed in apple growing in 

 Michigan as we should, and I want to tell you that they will never be 

 solved by merely theorizing. 



