Juhj, 1921 



combination came after many years 

 of travail, and lasted until 1917. 



The Oregon Growers' Co-oper- 

 ative Association was formed at 

 Salem, Oregon in 1919, and has 

 done much to unify the Willamette 

 Valley fruit and berry growers. It 

 also operates extensively at Med- 

 ford, The Dalles and other points 

 within the state. 



There are many problems for us 

 to solve today, and new ones will 

 present themselves as our distribu- 

 tion broadens, as it surely will, to 

 take in the rich and absorbent 

 markets of South America and the 

 Orient and the furthermost coun- 

 tries of Europe. 



The immensity of the Pacific 

 Coast fruit industry today, with an 

 annual production of more than 

 100,000 carloads, or approximately 

 57,000,000 boxes, is such that those 

 in control of its movement are 

 worthy of cultivation by our great 

 public carriers, both rail and water. 



When the Panama Canal, pos- 

 sibly the greatest monument in the 

 world to American resourcefulness 

 and brains, was nearing completion, 

 our Northwest fruit growers were 

 promised an economical and ade- 

 quate transportation service to the 

 Atlantic seaboard and England. 

 Not until last year, however, was it 

 ever even tried out commercially, 

 when the Earl Fruit Company 

 loaded 30,000 boxes of apples on 

 the refrigerator ship Kinderdyck 

 for London and Liverpool. Two 

 other ships were loaded from the 

 Northwest for foreign ports also. 

 Instantly upon reports of the suc- 

 cess of these shipments, however, 

 it became the "big stick" raised 

 against the railroads for the lower- 

 ing of their rates. The railroads 

 cannot afford to permit any consid- 

 erable tonnage to go to the Canal, 

 for they realize the difficulty in di- 

 verting it to themselves another 

 year. 



Already the North Pacific Coast 

 Line has been formed, affording a 

 joint service of the Royal Mail 

 Steam Packet Company and the 

 Holland-America Line. They of- 

 fer a fast freight service between 

 Pacific Coast ports and England, 

 Holland and Germany, all their 



BETTER FRUIT 



steamers being equipped with re- 

 frigerators to handle fresh fruits 

 and other perishable commodities in 

 commercial quantities. 



There are too many of our grow- 

 ers, unfortunately, who are deep in 

 the rut of routine, too busy all day 

 and too tired when night comes 

 to do more than scan newspaper 

 headlines and then tumble into bed. 

 Day after day, they perform the 

 round of seasonable tasks in a more 

 or less mechanical way. They will 

 tell you that they know how to 

 prune, how to spray, how to thin, 

 and have packed more apples than 

 you have ever seeuj that they used 

 to read their fruit magazine and 

 federal bulletins before they 



Mr. Sliepard was not only an able editor and 

 entertaining companion, but he knew how to 

 grow fine fruit as well. 



learned it all, but not now. These 

 wiseacres have lost absolutely the 

 broad vision with which they en- 

 tered the game, and are narrowed 

 down to a hum-drum and deadly 

 existence. There have been many 

 lean years 'tis true, enough to try 

 men's souls to the breaking point, 

 but it's coming back, so let us awake 

 to a future infinitely greater than 

 the rosiest era of the past, and come 

 to some realization of the big 

 things developing in our industry. 

 There are too many millions of 

 dollars invested, too many big and 

 able men in the game to permit of 

 anything put progression. Last year 

 our growers found many reasons 

 besides the failure of their associa- 

 tion to market wisely for low re- 

 turns. High harvesting costs and 



Page 5 



high prices of boxes and other ma- 

 terials, together with excessive 

 freight rates, were held responsible. 



There was another cause, how- 

 ever, and probably nearer the true 

 cause than any of the others men- 

 tioned, though naturally they con- 

 tributed. The annual report of one 

 of out strongest marketing associa- 

 tions shows that of the entire ton- 

 nage handled by it in 1920 only 

 44 per cent was Extra Fancy, 1>() 

 per cent Fancy and 20 per cent 

 C-Grade, whereas the averages for 

 the three years previous were Extra 

 Fancy 52 per cent, Fancy 32 per 

 cent and C-Grade 16 per cent. 

 The report shows further a decrease 

 in the size of the fruit grown, as 

 follows: 1920, 4-tier 40 per cent, 

 43/2-tier 'i'i per cent, 5-tier 25 per 

 cent. Averages for the three pre- 

 ceding years were: 4-tier 54 per 

 cent, 43/j-tier 30 per cent and 5-tier 

 slightly over 16 per cent. With 

 only 44 boxes Extra Fancy, out of 

 100 packed, and only 40 per cent 

 of those, or 17.6 boxes of 4-tier, 

 surely we can read the answer. 



A let-up in spraying, failure to 

 adequately thin, passing up the nec- 

 essary feeding of the trees through 

 fertilization and then, in natural 

 sequence, a low grade crop of small 

 fruit. 



A preponderance of Extra Fancy 

 fruit, of large size, such as we used 

 to grow and still can, will always 

 return a profit. 



The struggle has been and still 

 is for a perfect selling plan. Co- 

 operation has, it is true, been much 

 misused and abused, yet the suc- 

 cess of the future marketing of 

 fruits lies in true co-operative sel- 

 ling. 



To too many people, however, 

 co-operation is the act of some indi- 

 vidual or association helping them 

 solve their troubles but asking 

 nothing in return, whereas true co- 

 operation means work on the part 

 of all concerned for a common end. 



Let there be a franker under- 

 standing on the part of the mem- 

 bers of our marketing associations 

 of the countless hair-trigger de- 

 cisions the sales manager is called 

 upon to make, with an equal chance 



{Concluded on fage 21) 



