igiY 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page 2S 



ing efTiciency methods and of standard- 

 izing these methods. For, during the 

 last five years, we have been cutting 

 our wisdom teeth. It may be that for 

 some of us, perhaps, they have not yet 

 even sprouted. For a larger number 

 their growth has been the occasion of 

 considerable pain, and the pain has 

 extended right down into the pocket- 

 book. However that may be, we have 

 gradually been forced to the realization 

 that fruit growing is "business" and 

 that to make it "good business" we 

 nmst follow certain business rules. 



The primary rule of every producing 

 and selling business is to make the best 

 article possible with the least possible 

 expense. Has the production cost of 

 apples been reduced to the lowest de- 

 gree consistent with the growing of a 

 superior article? All figures available 

 at this time seem to say that this is not 

 the case. Let us face the facts. Other 

 big industries have cost systems and 

 efTiciency experts. Northwestern fruit 

 growers have united in no systematic 

 effort to gain efficiency in their pro- 

 duction. By this I mean with particular 

 reference to cost reduction. Many in- 

 dividual growers have sought to reduce 

 costs, but as a body we have done noth- 

 ing. We have heretofore compared 

 notes on how to fight pests, how to 

 handle soils that are blowing away or 

 are sticking together too tightly, and 

 how to pick and sort and pack our 

 fruit, but we have never come together 

 with the express purpose of finding out 

 how cheaply and at the same time how 

 efficiently these same things might be 

 done. 



One of the first steps in an efficiency 

 program is the standardization of each 



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HRE you reading the history 

 now running serially in 

 advertisement form in Colliers ^ 

 Saturday Evening Post and 

 other national magazines of the 

 building of the Union Pacific? 



Union Pacific is a national achieve- 

 ment upon which depended the 

 safety of the Union and the holding 

 of the Pacific States. 



The stories are rich in intimate facts of United States 

 history. When you read them you will realize what a 

 great part Union Pacific played in the growth and welfare 

 of our Nation; and how truly serviceable Union Pacific 

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 United States, as individual travelers, or shippers, and as 

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process in the growing, manufacture, 

 construction or sale of an article. Have 

 we any such standard by which to grow 

 apples? It may be true that conditions 

 are so different on different fruit farms 

 that we cannot attempt to say, it shall 

 cost to much per acre to prune, so much 

 per tree to thin, or so much per box to 

 put fruit on board the cars, i.e., it seems 

 that an absolute standard would be 

 impossible. But at the same time a 

 relative standard which will enable 

 each of us to compare our own cost 

 items with the cost of each step in a 

 process, item by item, as worked out 

 by a number of economical growers, 

 and thus enable us to see where we are 

 possibly spending too much, and arc 

 perhaps using the wrong methods — 

 such a system would seem to be a prime 



necessity. But how to arrive at such a 

 standard? By a quizz sent out to all 

 growers? That has been tried in get- 

 ting other information and is not uni- 

 formly successful. By means of a paid 

 investigator? We might be more suc- 

 cessful this way, but if we are aiming 

 at economy this looks like more ex- 

 pense. We would probably not be will- 

 ing to dig down into our .pockets for 

 very much. Shall we ask the govern- 

 ment experts to do this for us? If we 

 do, sometime, somewhere their reports 

 would be printed — it takes a long, long 

 time to get definite results this way. 

 Suppose that, during the time allotted 

 for discussion following the reading of 

 this paper, the members present com- 

 pare notes on cost items — at best the 

 result would be hazy. In such a short 



