Miscellaneous. 163 



Many growers, when the time for harvesting the crop was 

 at hand, had made no provision for barrels or storage, and were 

 consequently on the anxious seat. When the longed-for buyer 

 did not show up, the fruit wa,s in many cases shaken from the 

 trees and hauled to the evaporator and sold for little. We have got 

 to learn the best methods of packing our apples and thus equip 

 ourselves for the emergency of a large crop. Thus equipped, we 

 are prepared to pack our fruit in a manner acceptable to the 

 buyer and we have the crop half sold. For there were many op- 

 portunities to sell that came to my knowledge through conversa- 

 tions with buyers from the east if the apples were packed and 

 properly packed, but the buyer had not the time to get barrels at 

 that late date nor had he the time to look up men to do the packing. 

 If this is true, and I know that it is, that many sales were not 

 made that could have been made if the grower had been prepared 

 with the packages and the knowledge necessary to a good pack, 

 then we, as growers, should learn by this to learn the necessary 

 details of good packing, and provide the packages in time. The 

 buyer will always be glad to have the barrels provided if they 

 be good ones, as this is one of the greatest drawbacks, especially 

 in times of large crops. If there is a really bumper crop in Illi- 

 nois, the grower will, unless he mends his ways along the lines sug- 

 gested, find that he is certainly up against it good and hard. With 

 only half the orchards bearing fruit and half of the other half 

 with only a partial crop, the yield this season in Southern Illinois 

 may well be esimated at one-third of a full crop. But inasmuch 

 as probably no year will witness all the trees bearing, the crop 

 should be rightfully estimated at half of a full crop. 



Too much stress cannot be placed on the fact that our growers 

 need to learn to pack the fruit themselves. It is easy to see that 

 the fruit is more readily sold to the buyer; that it costs the buyer 

 more to pack the fruit than it does the grower, for the latter is at 

 home and on his own ground, at a minimum expense for labor, 

 while the buyer is in a strange locality, where everyone is seem- 

 ingly trying to get all he has. In the matter of wages he has to 

 pay the limit, and he seldom gets the full value for his money, 

 as does the grower. Every man's hand is against him and the 

 cost to him is nearly double what the grower could do the same 

 work for if he understands the work. If this is true, the grower 

 will realize more for his apples packed than he will on the trees, 

 as some of us prefer to sell. This is not all, as stated before, but he 

 is independent in a measure, for he is in position to accept the offer 

 of buyers who drop in for one car or a thousand barrels. 



