Specific Marketing Problems 45 



suited in a fairly long producing season and to this extent has prevented 

 local market gluts to a considerable extent. About 2,100 acres in the 

 Salt River X'alley are now devoted to the production of deciduous 

 fruits. The individual acreages, however, are small and a comparatively 

 large number of growers are interested. Individual acreages range 

 from 3 acres to 160 acres. Most of the plantings, however, range from 

 5 to 10 acres. Few of the orchards are handled by experienced fruit 

 growers and this has tended to demoralize partially the commercial 

 production of this class of fruit. 



The season of 191 7 was fairly typical of conditions as they now 

 exist and may be reviewed profitably. The crop was fairly large, 

 although a few individual orchards had a small yield. Most of the 

 trees, especially the apricot trees, bore too large a crop of fruit. Be- 

 cause of poor market prospects, few of the growers considered it 

 necessary to thin their fruit properly early in the season and, as a 

 result, a large part of the crop was of excellent quality, but was small 

 and unattractive for market purposes. With but few exceptions no 

 arrangements were made for marketing the crop prior to harvest. 

 The first fruit ripening in the trees found the growers with no ideas 

 as to its disposition. The local market was soon glutted and low prices 

 offered locally caused several of the growers to make no attempt to 

 harvest their fruit. As a result there was a considerable loss of fruit 

 which, while not first class marketable stock, could nevertheless have 

 been handled at a profit if more favorable circumstances had prevailed. 

 Prices for local sales averaged to the grower about i cent per pound 

 for apricots on the trees and from 2 to 3 cents per pound picked into 

 lug boxes. Larger quantities than usual were dried and canned, but 

 in spite of this effort at conservation, there was a relatively heavy loss 

 of good fruit. Despite the local situation, there was a reasonably 

 active demand for peaches and apricots in the mining towns of Arizona 

 and New Mexico, while the larger cities in Kansas, Texas and Okla- 

 homa were offering about $2.50 per 25-pound box. A few shippers in 

 the Valley eased the local market by moving fruit to outside points. 

 Early in the season, before the California apricot crop began to 

 mature, 3 or 4 cars of Newcastles went forward to Los Angeles. This 

 fruit met with a satisfactory sale, but shipment in this direction was 

 soon curtailed because local shipments from California drove the 

 Arizona product from coast markets. One growers' association at 

 Glendale as a side line shipped considerable quantities of peaches and 

 apricots in small express lots to mining towns in Arizona. Returns 



