562 ANNTTAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



after being in cold storage three months. Some of our apples were 

 sold this fall for |2.00 a barrel, and last week some of those apples 

 put into cold storage, from the same orchard, sold for $5.00 a barrel. 

 This is one among the man}^ experiences that come up every day, 

 and I have often wondered why you gentlemen who raise good 

 fruit, and you raise it to make a few dollars, do not take more in- 

 terest in putting it away and holding it so you can realize several 

 hundred per cent, more for it by keeping it a few months longer. 



I extend an invitation to you, if any of you come to Philadelphia, 

 to come to the Reading Terminal Cold Storage Plant and I will 

 gladly show you the method by which we successfully keep fruit, 

 and dispose of it, and I will be glad to give you any other informa- 

 tion on the subject and do anything I can to help you make money. 



I thank you for your kind attention. 



COOPERATIVE MARKETING OF FRUITS AND EXPORT 



TRADE POSSIBILITIES. 



Bv A \V FULTON, Managing Bditor, A'ni'rlCiin Afjriculturist, New York City. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: It has been well 

 said that the business end of fruit growing is in the mar- 

 ket, and I would be very foolish if I thought I could give any advice 

 to these practical fruit growers who have met here to-day, but I 

 have taken a great deal of pains to ascertain the various questions 

 which arise concerning the marketing of fruit. I will try to confine 

 myself closely to the figures, and try to avoid going outside of the 

 subject. With that end in view, I have written my thoughts down 

 in a paper. 



I need not tell you that fresh fruit is handled in two ways, in- 

 dividually and on the co-operative system. These two general plans 

 comprehend most of the distribution, no matter in what part of the 

 country the fruit is grown, nor how it eventually reaches the con- 

 sumer. Within the limits of this brief paper I shall touch but lightly 

 upon the individual sale of the grower's crop of apples or berries. 

 as in this conditions vary as far as the east is from the west. In- 

 stead, I propose to rapidly bring before you what is actually being 

 done by a number of successful associations marketing fruit on 

 the co-operative plan. Then finally a few words on the export possi- 

 bilities in certain of our splendid fruits. 



Your association represents the highly important fruit interests 

 of the great State of Pennsylvania, and I want to say right here 

 that the possibilities of commercial orcharding in these hills and 

 valleys has been by no means measured. For many years I have 

 given close and personal attention to the wholesale fruit markets 

 in the eastern cities, and have from time to time been confronted 

 with a statement made by some commission merchant or wholesale 

 dealer, that Pennsylvania does not cut so much of a figure in tht 

 big apple markets as one might expect; far less, for example, than 



