January, 1920 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page 5 



shell when ripe, as do the self-husking 

 varieties. However, greater disadvan- 

 tages than this have been overcome in 

 the fruit world and someone will un- 

 doubtedly develop a mechanical busker 

 which will do the work. The White 

 Aveline is a better yielder than Red 

 Aveline and husks better. It is a very 

 regular bearer when properly pollen- 

 ized. The tree is medium to below 

 medium in size. Dorris thinks the small 

 size of the tree is due to the tendency 

 towards overbearing. His trees seem 

 to be growing more rapidly as they 

 reach the age of 9 to 12 years. Nibler 

 thinks that this variety does best as a 

 bush, as it is a weak grower at best, 

 and he thinks the training to tree form 

 stunts it. 



The Red Aveline is very similar to the 

 White Aveline in its various character- 

 istics. The skin around the kernel is 

 wine colored in this variety and the nut 

 itself is a little smaller than in the 

 White. 



Until more definite information is 

 available on the subject, the planter 

 had best plant a mixture of varieties. 

 The bulk of the planting will probably 

 be Barcelona. About 10 per cent Du- 

 Ghillys at least should be planted with 

 the Barcelonas and about 5 per cent 

 Davidianas. If the latter cannot be pur- 

 chased, Barcelonas should be planted 

 and later top-worked to Davidiana. 

 These varieties are all fairly strong 

 growers and should be planted at 20 feet 

 apart as a minimum. The Avelines can 

 be planted separately from the larger 

 growing trees, as they will do well at 

 14 or 15 feet apart. The latter spacing 

 will require 195 trees per acre, while 

 the 20-foot spacing of the Barcelona 

 will require 108 trees. Dorris found 

 that the White and Red Avelines, when 

 growing near Davidiana, produced well. 

 On the strength of his observations, we 

 would plant 195 trees per acre, about 20 

 per cent Red Avelines and the balance 

 White Avelines. WTiile the initial cost 

 of such a planting would be more than 



with the larger varieties, one would be 

 certain of a heavy yielding grove of 

 a variety of nuts that will, in discrimi- 

 nating markets, command a premium. 



We know of successful plantings on 

 river bottom soils, on the silt loam val- 

 ley soils and on the red hill type of soil. 

 Our personal opinion is that the desir- 

 ability of these soil types is about in the 

 order that they are above mentioned. 

 Frost need cause no worry to the 

 planter, as it does not seem to affect 

 these early blooming nuts. While it is 

 not desirable to plant any tree in ex- 

 tremely wet soils, the filbert does not 

 seem to be as particular in this respect 

 as are many other trees. 



The filbert is with us to stay. ^Vhile 

 many phases of its culture are still in 

 an experimental stage, the question as 

 to whether it will make a paying invest- 

 ment is past that stage. Within a few 

 years the filbert industry will be men- 

 tioned along with the apple, pear, berry 

 and walnut industries of the Northwest. 



Solving the Fruit Growers' Problems by Cooperation 



From the Viewpoint of G. Harold Powell, General Manager California Fruit Growers' Exchange 



WILL the cooperative organization 

 solve the production and mar- 

 keting problems of the producer 

 without disturbing the functions of the 

 jobber and the retailer and at the same 

 time maintain a fair price to the con- 

 sumer for fruit and other perishable 

 products of the soil? G. Harold Powell, 

 general manager of the California Fruit 

 Growers' Exchange, answers this ques- 

 tion in the affirmative and adduces in- 

 controvertible evidence as to what the 

 organization he represents has done to 

 support his statements. Furthermore, 

 Mr. Powell, who, in addition to his long 

 experience with the California Fruit 

 Growers' Exchange, was identified with 

 Herbert Hoover in the Food Adminis- 

 tration during the war, is emphatic in 

 his statements that the producer must 

 work out these important problems for 

 himself. In addressing the Northwest 

 Fruit Growers' Conference at Spokane 

 recently on this subject he said: 



"The citrus industry of California 

 represents an investment of $225,000,- 

 000. For a period of twenty-five years 

 the growers have cooperated in the dis- 

 tribution and marketing of their crops; 

 in the last ten years in many phases of 

 production, in fruit handling, in the 

 purchase of orchard and packing house 

 supplies, in the protection of their 

 groves against diseases, insects or frost, 

 in the ownership of timber lands and 

 the manufacture of boxes, and in the 

 conversion of low grades of fruit into 

 by-products. The growers of the Cali- 

 fornia Fruit Growers' Exchange own 

 the trade-mark under which their bet- 

 ter fruit is sold and they have invested 

 more than .$250,000,000 in national ad- 

 vertising in twelve years to increase the 

 consumption of citrus fruits. They have 

 cooperated with the wholesale and re- 

 tail trade in the development of better 

 methods of fruit merchandising; with 

 the state and national governments in 



the establishment of better methods of 

 production and of fruit handling; and 

 with the railroads in securing a better 

 service and a better type of refrigerator 

 car. 



G. HAROLD POWELL 

 General Manager of the California Fruit Grow- 

 ers' Exchange, the largest and most successful 

 cooperative association in the world. 



The Producer and His Problems. 



"The questions which afi'ect the sta- 

 bility and permanently successful de- 

 velopment of the fruit industry can only 

 be worked out by the producers coop- 

 eratively. They will not be solved by 

 anyone else, because no one but the 

 producer has a primary, vital interest 

 in production. They cannot be solved 

 by an individual producer. The prog- 

 ress that has been made in every ques- 

 tion affecting the production of citrus 



fruits, such as the cheaper purchase of 

 supplies, the community protection 

 against insect pests or community frost 

 protection, the economical harvesting 

 and handling of the fruit, the establish- 

 ment of a citrus fruit experiment sta- 

 tion by the State University, has re- 

 sulted exclusively from the initiation 

 and the cooperation of producers. Those 

 who handle the growers' product for 

 them sometimes follow: they cannot 

 lead in the progress of an industry. 

 Their interest in the problems of pro- 

 duction is secondary. 



"The problem of distribution and 

 marketing a rapidly increasing crop, 

 such as equitable national distribution, 

 the development of new markets, and 

 effective national advertising, can be 

 handled by producers cooperatively, 

 and by them alone. Twenty years ago, 

 when the rapidly increasing citrus fruit 

 crop was left in the hands of individual 

 buyers, either local or distant, to han- 

 dle, the marketing collapsed because the 

 buyers could not take a risk when the 

 crop was large and the distribution was 

 not coordinated. The industry problem 

 was met only when the producers sys- 

 tematized the distribution of their own 

 fruit, eliminated speculation from its 

 purchase and distribution, established 

 their own agents, and sold it to the 

 wholesale trade in the markets where 

 the fruit was to be consumed. The de- 

 livered system of selling replaced the 

 speculative f.o.b. method of sale, which 

 had brought the industry to a state of 

 bankruptcy, and with the speculative 

 element at the point of production elim- 

 inated the growers have been able to 

 keep the markets of the country evenly 

 supplied, thereby making it possible for 

 the jobber and retailer who bridge the 

 gap between the producer and consumer 

 to sell on an even merchandising, rather 

 than an erratic speculative basis. The 

 average jobber's margin on oranges, for 



