404 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



SELLING GREEN ORANGES. 



By J. Eliot Coit,* University of California. 



During the last season a great deal of interest and discussion were 

 aroused over the effect on the market of selling green or immature 

 oranges. Prices early in the season are usually high and the temptation 

 to begin harvest earlier each year has resulted in the marketing of much 

 fruit which is very sour and not fit to eat. Usually the earliest fruit 

 shipped is handled by speculators or itinerant buyers who do not have 

 the good of the industry as a whole sufficiently at heart. Often the first 

 shipments bring very high prices, but the poor quality of the fruit kills 

 the market and the order goes out "Don't buy any more California 

 oranges till after Christmas. ' ' Then when the conservative shippers who 

 have virtuously waited till the fruit was edible send in their first con- 

 signments they have hard work avoiding "red ink." In this case it 

 seems that the righteous have to answ^er for the sins of the wicked. 

 Something is certainly wrong when worthless fruit brings high prices 

 and good fruit goes begging a few weeks later. 



For every dollar made on green fruit by the extra early shipper, 

 perhaps ten dollars are lost later by conservative shippers through 

 general depreciation of the market. Low prices are caused directly by 

 a few sales of immature fruit. When a consumer gets "stung" through 

 a purchase he becomes suspicious and eats apples or bananas for a long 

 while before he ventures to buy any more oranges. 



Production of Oranges Increasing. 



The production of navel oranges in California is increasing at a rapid 

 rate. The climatic conditions in Northern California are well suited to 

 navel production and this is the chief variety planted. "While many 

 varieties of citrus fruits do well, it is my belief that the navel orange will 

 be the backbone of the future citrus industry in Northern California. It 

 is true that there are in Northern California enormous areas of cheap 

 land with water available where oranges may be grown to a high state of 

 perfection and we like to build air castles and picture to ourselves the 

 great citrus industry wdiich is to be developed here. It is w^ell, however, 

 to consider the fact that there were produced this j^ear in California and 

 Florida something like 60,000 cars of citrus fruits which include prac- 

 tically all the oranges consumed in the country. Thanks to the Cali- 

 fornia and Florida citrus exchanges, the distribution of this large 

 amount of fruit has been effectively worked out and it is safe to say that 

 today the supply meets the normal demand in every metropolis, city, and 

 village in the land. The successful sale of a greater amount of fruit will 

 depend upon the increase of the demand. It has been proven by actual 

 experiments that the demand and the consumption can be increased by 

 well planned, judicious advertising. California citrus growers are spend- 

 ing this year nearly a quarter million dollars advertising citrus fruit, 

 and Florida is spending a large amount. But to advertise successfully 

 it is absolutely essential that the article advertised be first class and thor- 

 oughly satisfactory. What is the use of spending hundreds of thousands 

 of dollars advertising and then kill the good effects of it by shipping to 



♦Address before the State Fruit Growers' Convention, Davis, California, June 1 

 to 6, 1914. 



