Page 6 



BETTER FRUIT 



February 



The farmer would no doubt be too 

 shrewd to deposit his money in a bank 

 in which he knew no accurate book 

 record was made of each and every 

 transaction, or even in one in which 

 the bookkeeping sytsein was a little 

 faulty, admitting of numerous errors. 

 Yet, with the best of face, he asks the 

 banker to put the money instrusled to 

 his care into his business and when 

 asked for a financial statement, par- 

 ticularly if full details are required, 

 complains of red-tape and seems to feel 

 that his honesty is at question when 

 simple information is all that is sought. 



I venture the guess that not one 

 wheat farmer in live hundred knows 

 the average cost of production and 

 average selling price of wheat per 

 bushel from his own farm over a period 

 of the last five years. He can, perhaps, 

 tell you something of the high and low 

 spots, as, for instance, how he used to 

 sell for thirty cents and how in 1893 

 he got nothing, and he knows that this 

 year the Government didn't pay him 

 quite $2.00 in the field, but as to what 

 his average net returns have been for 

 several years, between the high and 

 low price, he is guessing in the dark or 

 trusting to memory. All are agreed, 

 however, that the farmer gets skinned 

 at every turn of the road, although he 

 has no figures to prove it other than 

 the fact that he hasn't much left. Per- 

 haps if accurate records were kept, it 

 would be shown that his business pays 

 him as good or better returns than is 

 paid by some of the alleged soulless 

 corporations. Perhaps his business is 

 not to be blamed if he doesn't keep any 

 of the profits after he gets them. 



A banker cannot form accurate opin- 

 ions regarding other lines of business 

 and the ability of the men engaged in 

 them except from books and records 

 which show what has been done in 

 those businesses, and farming, the big- 

 gest business in this country, is cer- 

 tainly no exception. It seems to me 

 that in the fruit business the keeping 

 of records to show the cost per box of 

 producing and delivering the crop, the 

 price received and the net gain or loss 

 ought to be a simple matter. If you 

 want your hanker to form a good, 

 sound opinion of your business and 

 your ability to successfully handle it, 

 show him the recorded facts and fig- 

 ures, rather than give him estimates 

 from memory. He doesn't dare trust 

 memory in his own office, and would 

 rather have your records than your 

 memory. Well-kept records of what is 

 actually being accomplished will go far 

 toward putting the fruit industry on a 

 solid foundation and toward overcom- 

 ing the idea that it is a risky business 

 jecause of the perishable nature of the 

 product. 



There is a risk involved in every com- 

 mercial transaction, but the fear of 

 apples spoiling in transit or in the 

 hands of brokers and selling agencies 

 has perhaps been one of the principal 

 reasons why they have not heretofore 

 been regarded "as good as the wheat." 

 Yet I presume that if the percentage of 

 the crops produced which has actually 

 been lost was published and compared 

 with the percentage of loss in the 



banana industry it would he too small 

 to be noticed. I think you ought to 

 cackle a good deal about this. You 

 know when you say "eggs" everyone 

 thinks of hen eggs, yet the duck egg is 

 just as good and twice as large. The 

 difference is the hen cackles and the 

 duck doesn't. Perhaps the banana in- 

 dustry, which is quite firmly estab- 

 lished, is the hen and the fruit industry 

 is the duck — which ought to wake up 

 and advertise. I am a strong believer 

 in printers' ink and the white light of 

 publicity, and believe that the men en- 

 gaged in the fruit business ought to 

 take advantage of every opportunity 

 offered to educate the public to the 

 value of the Big Red Apple as a food 

 product, to the end that the variety of 

 uses to which is is adapted may be 

 better known and appreciated and its 

 consumption increased and your mar- 

 kets consequently widened. 



I venture the guess that the average 

 American family makes a great many 

 more daily purchases of bananas, 

 shipped from the tropics, perishable as 

 they are, than of Northwestern boxed 

 apples. ^Vhen you have a firmly knit- 

 together selling organization covering 

 the entire United States, with a per- 

 fectly organized distributing system 

 which makes the sight of your apples 

 at every fruit stand and grocery store 

 quite as common as the sight of oranges 

 and bananas, so that it is as easy for 

 the shopper to get a sun-tinted apple a 

 day to keep the doctor away for every 

 member of the family as it is for him to 

 get the sun-kissed oranges, and when 

 by educational advertising you have 

 taught him to think in terms of apples 

 as he now thinks in terms of bananas 

 and oranges you will have, without 

 reference to export markets, a demand 

 which will go far toward absorbing 

 your output and allaying the fear of 

 overproduction, even with all the or- 

 chards in bearing, of the many that 

 have been planted, which will ever see 

 the productive stage. This fear of over- 

 production and the uncertainty of your 

 limited markets, as well as the fear of 

 decay in transit, is largely responsible 

 for the unfavorable light in which the 

 fruit industry has heretofore been held 

 by a great many people. 



It is a well-known financial maxim 

 that "The higher the rate of return the 

 greater the risk involved." Here, 

 again, the big returns of the banner 

 years in the infancy of the fruit in- 

 dustry have acted as a boomerang to 

 discredit the industry to some extent in 

 the minds of financial men, who, before 

 committing themselves to support the 

 marketing of the fruit crops, wanted to 

 be shown the sureness of your mar- 

 kets in the big-crop years and the sure- 

 ness of the percentage of returns in the 

 poor-crop years. The man who has 

 gone through the ups and downs of the 

 business for several years and has 

 records to show that he did not become 

 over-intoxicated with success in the 

 good years, nor had his heart broken in 

 the poor ones, is now, in my opinion, 

 in a better position to talk "turkey" to 

 his banker, when he needs assistance, 

 than ever before. 



The industry is yet new, compara- 

 tively speaking, and while there is yet 

 a great deal to be done much has al- 

 ready been done toward solving your 

 problems and placing the industry upon 

 a proven basis, and it is quite refresh- 

 ing to take stock of the progress made, 

 just as when climbing up a long hill it 

 is refreshing to occasionally stop and 

 look back to see how far you have gone. 



If you will contrast present market- 

 ing conditions with what they were a 

 few years ago when the commission 

 men and consignment houses had it all 

 their own way, you will certainly have 

 cause to congratulate yourselves upon 

 your good judgment in the organiza- 

 tion of your co-operative selling 

 agencies. Necessity perhaps mothered 

 this invention and forced you to get 

 together when it was every fellow for 

 himself and the devil wasn't very far 

 from the heels of any of you, but you 

 must not forget to give co-operation the 

 credit due for what has been done and 

 stay together for all time, despite any 

 and all petty jealousies which are so 

 apt to creep into organizations of this 

 kind. 



No doubt some mistakes have been 

 made, and others will be made, so long 

 as you have only human beings to man- 

 age your affairs, and perhaps you have 

 some men in your co-operative associ- 

 ations who are blessed with the spirit 

 of criticism and can tell you of many 

 things that have been done that ought 

 not to have been done, and of many 

 more things which have been left un- 

 done that ought to have been done — 

 and, oh Lord, a thousand things that 

 need fixing. 



Russia today is a shining example of 

 the handiwork of men, strong on de- 

 structive criticism but weak on con- 

 structive program; so before giving too 

 much heed to the calamity howler and 

 crepe hanger, perhaps it would be well 

 to ask him for a well tried and proven 

 remedy for the ills he so loudly be- 

 moans. 



Co-operative marketing associations, 

 being institutions of your own crea- 

 tion, are just what you make them, and 

 if they don't suit you it is up to you to 

 help steer them in the way they should 

 go. Their success or failure is abso- 

 lutely up to you. The future of the 

 fruit business in this country, in my 

 opinion, entirely depends upoii these 

 institutions, and their success will be 

 measured exactly by the measure of 

 your hearty co-operation and support. 



Based upon our observation and ex- 

 perience of the last few years, I should 

 say, if asked to point out the princi- 

 pal weaknesses of co-operative selling 

 agencies and prescribe remedies, that 

 the chief faults are two — lack of capital 

 to properly handle a task of such mag- 

 nitude and a tendency to stray into 

 other fields of activity than that in 

 which they are best fitted to serve. Re- 

 garding the latter, while I am a strong 

 believer in co-operation, I like to see 

 it halt a safe margin this side of pater- 

 nalism. I do not believe your co-opera- 

 tive association should attempt to do 

 everything for its members and leave 

 them nothing to do for themselves, any 

 more than every member should at- 



