Page 18 



BETTER FRUIT 



January. 1921 



BETTER FRUIT 



An Illustrated Magazine Devoted to the Interests 



of Modern Fruit Growing and Marketing. 



Published Monthly 



by 



Better Fruit Publishing Company 



703 Oregonian Building 

 PORTLAND, OREGON 



OFFICERS AND STAFF 



D. L. Carpenter President 



A. \Y. Stypes Vice-President 



E. E. Faville Secretary -Treasurer 



W. H. Walton Editor 



C. I. Moody Advertising Manager 



E. C. Williams. . .San Francisco Representative 



Hobart Building 



Water Transportation. 



The recent shipment of apples from 

 Portland, Oregon, to New York at the 

 hands of the United American Lines, a 

 strongly organized steamship company 

 recently formed for intercoastal service, 

 is likely to be the opening wedge of a 

 waterway movement of a large tonnage 

 of fruit from the Pacific Northwest to 

 Atlantic Coast points and Europe. 



The importance of this move and the 

 putting on of fast steamers that will 

 sail from San Francisco and other Pa- 

 cific Coast ports equipped with refrig- 

 eration that will make a specialty of 

 carrying fruits from this region to the 

 Orient are fraught with great possibil- 

 ities to the fruitgrowers of the Pacific 

 Northwest. 



In writing of the great importance of 

 developing water transportation for Pa- 

 cific Coast fruits, Charles A. Malboeuf, 

 who has had a wide experience in 

 handling apples both in this country 

 and abroad, says: 



"Years like 1912, 1914 and 1920, simi- 

 lar as they are in many respects, point 

 to certain definite conclusions. Fore- 

 most is the recognized vital need for a 

 vastly greater market than now offered 

 within our shores and those of the few 

 export countries we are shipping to 

 today, or have shipped to in the past. 

 Call that specific need water transpor- 

 tation, and you express precisely what 

 I have in mind, because in water trans- 

 portation is embraced a host of poten- 

 tial benefits. 



"In seasons of this kind, where the 

 national apple crops are fairly or ab- 

 normally large, and subnormal eco- 

 nomic conditions of varying acuteness 

 prevail, the marketing of our apples be- 

 comes a serious problem. The crops, 

 in whatever volume they may be, seem 

 in excess of the market requirements, 

 or at least beyond our ability to dis- 

 tribute at profitable prices. The gen- 

 eral conclusion, under those circum- 

 stances, is that we must have more 

 markets, specifically a greater export 

 market. That expresses the situation 

 broadly, but few persons realize the 

 extent to which that export market 

 must exist, especially the tremendous 

 character of water transportation es- 

 sential to properly meet actual needs." 



Recent investigations are to the effect 

 that large quantities of deciduous fruits 

 can be disposed of in the markets of the 

 Orient as well as Europe. All that is 

 larking for the Oriental trade apparent- 

 ly is transportation and this according 



to recent announcements will be pro- 

 vided. The outlook therefore for addi- 

 tional markets through water transpor- 

 tation to markets both far and near 

 seems bright enough to warrant the Pa- 

 cific Coast fruitgrower in regarding it 

 as one of his greatest possible assets. 



Poultry in the Orchard. 



Every fruitgrower should find it prof- 

 itable to keep poultry, the number de- 

 pending largely on the size of his ranch. 

 Where the acreage is large and a di- 

 versity of crops are grown it is possible 

 to maintain a larger flock than on a 

 smaller place. It is found that where 

 chickens are kept in connection with an 

 orchard and are allowed to range that 

 it is not necessary to buy much feed 

 for them except during the few winter 

 months. In fact the orchard provides a 

 variety of foods such as insects, seeds, 

 green matter and grit highly relished 

 by chickens. The practice by most or- 

 chardists of planting a cover crop in 

 the late summer or early fall and turn- 

 ing it under in the spring affords fine 

 pasturage for poultry during the time 



IMPORTANT NOTICE TO 

 SUBSCRIBERS 

 Effective January 1st, 1921, the 

 subscription price of "Better Fruit" 

 will be SI. 00 a year, and subscrib- 

 ers who have renewed recently at 

 the old rate of $2.00 a year will be 

 extended in accordance with postal 

 regulations. 



they are not confined. The eggs and 

 fowls that can be taken to market from 

 time to time add considerably to the 

 family income in the way of living or 

 in purchasing little things needed for 

 the home. 



In raising fowls it will pay the fruit- 

 grower best to choose one breed, prefer- 

 ably of an all purpose strain, that is 

 the kind of strain that are both good 

 layers and good table fowls, as his 

 marketing opportunities are doubled. 

 Also if he is raising a pure-bred flock 

 of chickens he will find it much more 

 profitable in disposing of the chicks 

 should he raise a surplus or go into the 

 breeding business. With a well built 

 poultry house and not too large a flock 

 the orchardist who gives his poultry the 

 right attention will find the venture 

 profitable. 



For these reasons Better Fruit is 

 opening a poultry department that it 

 hopes will prove both valuable and in- 

 teresting to its manv readers. 



A Tariff for Fruits. 



From recent disclosures made by W. 

 H. Paulhamus, head of the Puyallup & 

 Sumner Fruitgrowers' Canning Com- 

 pany, in regard to foreign competition 

 with some of our small fruits, notably 

 cherries, and also through investiga- 

 tions along this line from other sources 

 it is apparent that a tariff would prove 

 beneficial in protecting American fruits 

 and nuts from the competition of 

 those grown under cheap labor con- 



ditions and exported to this country and 

 sold at a lower figure than the home- 

 grown product. 



The matter of a tariff to protect home- 

 grown fruits has already been taken up 

 tentatively by a number of fruitgrow- 

 ers' organizations on the Pacific Coast 

 and Congress will no doubt soon be 

 asked to frame a law for this purpose. 

 As the development of several branches 

 of the fruit industry and its future 

 prosperity will largely hinge on con- 

 trolling or at least fixing the price for 

 these foreign fruit products that will 

 place them on a level with the home- 

 grown article it is of great importance 

 that such a measure receive the support 

 of fruitgrowers and Congress as well. 



Caring for a Patriarch. 



The action taken by the 'Washington 

 State Horticultural Association at its re- 

 cent meeting in Spokane to provide care 

 and protection for historical apple trees 

 is of interest to every fruitgrower in 

 the Northwest and is to be commended. 

 The particular tree which the members 

 of the Washington society had in mind 

 when it adopted the resolution pro- 

 viding for this action is one that was 

 planted at Vancouver, Wash., in 1826, 

 according to historical tradition. The 

 report of the committee which was as- 

 signed to care for the tree is that it is 

 apparently healthy and in good condi- 

 tion although lacking but five years of 

 being 100 years old. 



Arrangements have been made to 

 have this patriarch of appledom lack 

 for nothing during its declining years, 

 a fitting tribute to its historical interest 

 as the oldest living representative of an 

 industry that has now become one of 

 the most prominent and successful in 

 the state of Washington and other sec- 

 tions of the Northwest. 



to 



What the Papers Interested 

 in Fruit Are Saying 



THE PLOWMAN. 

 The plowman used to plod his way. 

 The old style plowman is today 



Not such a factor. 

 For we have been progressing some; 

 The modern plowman rattles home 



Upon a tractor. — Tractor Farming. 



It cost the state hospital at Oshkosh $128.40 

 spray their SOO-tree orchard under the 

 direction of F. R. Gifford of the horticultural 

 department at the Wisconsin College of Agri- 

 culture. When they figured their returns at the 

 close of the apple harvest they found a return 

 of 4,066 per cent on their spraying invest- 

 ment. Here is their story: Four sprays were 

 applied at the right time. It took 800 gallons 

 of spray mixture and the work of 3 men, and 

 a team for 12 hours to apply each spray. It 

 cost slightly more than 16 cents to spray a tree 

 four times, their cost figures show. When 

 they picked their apples they found that on an 

 average sprayed tree they had eight bushels 

 of apples worth $1.25 a bushel, or $10. But 

 nne-half bushel were unmarketable. On an 

 unsprayed tree they got one-half bushel of mar- 

 ketable apples, ami I 1 .- bushels of unmarket- 

 able fruit. They figured tin-, apples :is worth 

 $2.50. A spraying cost ■>!' slightly over 16 

 cents a tree made a differ n the 



value of apples. — Wisconsin University Bulle- 

 tin. 



With apple prices gradually slumping, even 

 best grades, winter varieties, a good deal of 

 interest centers around the investigations just 

 completed undf he direction of the New York 

 State Federation >f County Farm Bureau Asso- 

 ciations on cost o.' producing a barrel of apples 

 under average conditions in Western New York 



