No. 7. DEiPARTMiENT OF AGRICULTURE. g63 



western New York or Micbigan or possibly Missouri. When asking 

 why, tlie reply is given me that Pennsylvania grows enormous quan- 

 tities of apples, but not in the systematic manner in vogue in the 

 territory adjacent to Niagara Falls, or some of the southern counties 

 of Michigan, or in the Southwest. There, an operator may go into 

 an orchard before harvest, and buy an entire block of 10, 20 or 40 

 acres of Baldwin apples, or Greenings, or Spys; or if in the south- 

 west, the much berated leather-skinned Ben Davis. But if this 

 same operator with apple storage facilities comes into Pennsylvania, 

 it is difficult for him to find an orchard of a given variety of stand- 

 ard sort, running clean, even in size, and free from blemish. Were 

 he to buy an orchard he would be obliged to take apples of a dozen 

 or twenty varieties and this means lack of the uniformity which the 

 large operator seeks. But 1 am constrained to believe that with 

 the impression being made upon our Pennsylvania fruit growers 

 in recent years by just such organizations as this, together with the 

 excellent work by the experiment station and other educational 

 enterprises, permanent good is being done toward placing Pennsyl- 

 vania, with its large aggregate output of apples, mentioning that 

 fruit for the moment, nearer the front rank in commercial orchard- 

 ing. 



Last year I had occasion to make very thorough research in all 

 parts of the country into the subject of co-operative marketing of 

 fruits. Among the interesting things I learned was that this valua- 

 ble avenue of distribution is only in the beginning of its usefulness. 

 Here and there highly successful fruit marketing associations are 

 conducted. In other places the work is in a formative stage, while 

 very largely this phase of the business is still something entirely 

 of the future. Through my investigations at that time, and through 

 the most recent confirmation of conditions, I am inclined to be- 

 lieve that co-operative marketing is more observed (and perhaps 

 more successful) in small fruits, particularly strawberries and 

 grapes than in tree fruits. I am not now alluding to the great 

 co-operative associations on the Pacific Coast, which are in a way 

 a class by themselves. In the western apple producing sections east 

 of the Rocky Mountains, the movement for co-operative marketing 

 is in somewhat the same condition as here in the east; some fairly 

 successful organizations, but as a rule, apples handled independ- 

 ently. 



In apple orcharding there are many things in favor of inducing 

 buyers to personally visit the orchard at time of harvest or just 

 before in order to secure the best prices, this fruit being of less 

 perishable nature than berries, for example. In fact, both West 

 and East, there is a very strong drift among successful orchardists, 

 to sell their apples on the tree, or barreled, as the case may be. at 

 home rather than through consignee or a commission merchant, to 

 say nothing of any attempt to handle the apples on the co-operative 

 plan. A highly successful apple grower in Illinois once gave me 

 this testimonial expressed in a single paragraph: "I have tried to 

 find out how to get the best market results; I have consigned apples 

 to various commission hoTises and this method cost me thousands 

 of dollars owing to unsatisfactory returns. I have sold apples to 

 be paid for on arrival, and this is as had, as the commission house 

 is liable to turn down the car of fruit on arrival, provided the mar- 



