I9I7 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page 7 



Ninth National Apple Show, Spokane, Nov. 24-25, 1916 



IN many ways the Ninth National 

 Apple Show, held in Spokane, No- 

 vember 20 lo 25, was the most suc- 

 cessful in the history of that important 

 Northwestern event. The attendance of 

 actual growers was the greatest in the 

 history of the show. They came from 

 all parts of the Northwest, eager to 

 exchange ideas regarding their prob- 

 lems, and ready to give the other fel- 

 low the benefit of their experiences and 

 successes in attacking the problems 

 with which they were most familiar. 



It was interesting to note the change 

 that has taken place in the big Spokane 

 show during the nine years of its ex- 

 istence. At the outset and for several 

 years the central idea of those behind 

 the show was to assemble a great quan- 

 tity of apples. The growers sent them 

 in by the carload, and in the racks they 

 covered acres of ground. It made an 

 impressive sight, and served the pur- 

 pose at that time, but in later years it 

 was found that the expense of as- 

 sembling this enormous quantity of 

 apples was not justified. They found 

 that the same results could be accom- 

 plished with fewer apples on exhibi- 

 tion, and this gave them the oppor- 

 tunity to devote the money and the 

 etforts of their organization toward 

 doing a number of things that have 

 proved to be of very great benefit to the 

 fruitgrowers of the Northwest. This 

 developed the conference idea, vi'hich 

 has grown year by year until in 1916 

 we had the biggest and most successful 

 conference in the history of the show. 

 The big assembly room on the sixth 

 floor of the Chamber of Commerce 

 Building was turned over to the grow- 

 ers. Here they got together five days, 

 each morning and afternoon, and 

 threshed out their problems. One of 

 the big features of the conference was 

 the presence and active participation of 

 James Madison, general manager of the 

 California Associated Raisin Company. 

 Mr. Madison told how the raisin men 

 had doubled their selling price and at 

 the same time doubled their output in 

 the last three years, and he advised 

 application of the raisin men's plan to 

 the apple industry. "Co-operation alone 

 won't do the work," he said in a dis- 

 cussion of the situation. "You will have 

 to have full control of tlie situation and 

 a central authority. The growers must 

 finance their own business. Of course, 

 the merchants and bankers chii)pcd in 

 some, too. I was a gentleman f^armer 

 living in San Francisco. I met anothei- 

 raisin grower at the club one day and 

 he said, '\\Tiat can we do to better our 

 condition?' We discussed the mailer 

 for a while and I finally told him if 

 he would give me a little money 1 

 would give three months of my time. 

 Twenty-five men put up one hundred 

 dollars apiece for stenographers, solic- 

 itors, etc. Here is the way I put it up 

 to the growers: This is your company, 

 not my company, but your company. 

 We started in that we were to have 

 $750,000 subscribed in money and sulli- 



By Robert S. Phillips, Spokane, Washington 



cient control of the acreage to control 

 the product. Those two things are nec- 

 essary for a successful co-operative 

 movement. First have control of the 

 product and then have the money to 

 finance it. The farmers must put up 

 the money to run their own business. 

 I found when I started in .30,000 tons 

 of raisins kicking around among the 

 farmers and several thousand tons in 

 the east. This was in April with another 

 crop coming on in four months. I 

 realized that we would be stuck with 

 the fall market coming on unless we 

 could do something to get rid of these 

 raisins. We purchased 25,000 to 26,000 

 tons of the raisins in California and I 

 bought all the raisins in New York I 

 could get hold of. We sold them and 

 made 16% besides paying all expenses. 

 The raisins sold like hot cakes. Why? 

 Because we were in control of the mar- 

 ket. Remember, we started with 30,000 

 tons and we produced that year 54,000 

 tons, so that our company handled that 

 year about 90,000 tons of raisins. The 

 following year we handled 93,000 tons 

 and in 1915 130,000 tons. Before our 

 organization was formed, four years 

 prior that the average crop was 78,000 

 tons, and out of that we had accumu- 

 lated a margin of 36,000 tons, showing 

 that there was something wrong. On 

 the first day of October, after a crop of 

 130,000, this year we didn't have a 

 raisin. Now how did we increase this 

 consumption? Advertising and sales- 

 manship. We looked up where the 

 consumption was slight; then the big- 

 gest volume of consumption that I could 

 see was with the bakeries. It is all 

 right for the housewife to use raisins, 

 but they don't compare with the baker- 

 ies. We induced the bakers to make 

 raisin bread. We have spent about one 

 million dollars in salesmanship and 



local advertising. We have had seventy 

 men on the road for a year. But the 

 whole cost has been included in that 

 half million dollars. However, in place 

 of carrying over thirty thousand odd 

 tons of raisins today we haven't got a 

 raisin to sell from now until the first 

 of next October. This year some of 

 our raisins were damaged during the 

 season, so that we realized that we 

 would have some raisins not up to 

 standard. We authorized our agents to 

 take orders for these and in four days 

 they sold 31,000 tons, worth over 

 $5,000,000 without a price because we 

 did not want to name a price until we 

 knew how badly the crop was dam- 

 aged. When you can increase the con- 

 sumption of a product like raisins, 

 which is more or less limited in its 

 use, I am satisfied that you can do the 

 same with apples. As I was crossing 

 in the ferry at San Francisco the other 

 day I saw a man eating an apple. There 

 are a hundred thousand people cross- 

 ing in those ferries every day; if you 

 could induce every man coming across 

 to eat an apple think what it would 

 mean." 



"Of course it could," he said. "Then 

 one man sitting in his office would con- 

 trol all the apples of the Northwest. 

 You would be putting the prices on 

 them then — not the other guy. Now 

 you throw your apples on the market 

 and the other fellow looks them over 

 and tells you what he'll give, and you 

 have to take it." 



During the conferences the joint state 

 commission on fruit marketing ap- 

 pointed by the governors nf Washing- 

 ton, Oregon, Idaho and Montana held 

 a public hearing with representative 

 growers, shippers and others interested 

 in the fruit-marketing problem in the 



I'irst prizt- winner in 100-box contest for sliippers. Wajioners entered by Arcadia VaUey Fruit 

 Growers' Association, advertising the "A" Brand. Nintli National Apple Show, Spokane, 191(). 



