BETTER FRUIT 



An Illustrated Magazine Devoted to the Interests of Modern 

 Progressive Fruit Growing and Marketing 



Entered as second-class matter April 22, 1918, at the Postoffice at Portland, Oregon, under act 



of Congress of March 3, 1879 



Volume XV 



Portland, Oregon, May, 1921 



Number 11 



The Canning Merger and the Northwest 



By W. H. Paulhamus, President of the Puyallup and Sumner Fruit Growers Canning Company 



IN REFERENCE to the advisability 

 of organizing a big, strong well- 

 financed canning company in the 

 Northwest, it is a well established fact 

 that the Pacific Northwest is capable of 

 producing a greater volume of bush 

 fruit per acre and of a better quality 

 than any other section of the United 

 States. It is also true that much raw 

 material for manufactured products ori- 

 ginates in the west. Is it advisable to 

 ship our raw material to eastern manu- 

 facturers, permitting the East to create 

 the payrolls necessary to manufacture 

 from the raw materials to the finished 

 product; or would it be more desirable 

 for the residents of the Northwest por- 

 tion off the United States to make a 

 comprehensive survey of what raw ma- 

 terials the}' can produce to better ad- 

 vantage, quality and cost per pound 

 considered, than can be produced else- 

 where and endeavor to establish such 

 industries on a permanent basis and of 

 the highest grade? 



New England has been exceedingly 

 successful in organizing big, strong fi- 

 nancial institutions for the purpose of 

 conducting the manufacturing industry. 

 In fact, the city of Boston alone has 

 made it possible to organize hundreds 

 of manufacturing institutions with an 

 abundance of capital so that these com- 

 panies could scour all sections of the 

 United States picking up raw material 

 and shipping it to New England to be 

 manufactured into finished products. 

 This has resulted in a wonderful dinner 

 pail brigade in the New England 

 states. 



IT IS not my desire to criticise the 

 Boston country for so doing, but on 

 the other hand, to point out to our own 

 people that this should be an object les- 

 son for us to the extent that we should 

 try to separate the wheat from the 

 chaff and organize companies of our 

 own so that we can not only produce the 

 raw material, but manufacture it 

 into a finished product, with the result 

 that we will not only find employment 



for the people who are now here, but 

 many in addition. This is what builds 

 up communities. 



It is a well established fact that we 

 have capita] with which to manufacture, 

 very largely because we have been pur- 

 chasing stock in manufacturing or spec- 



W. H. PAULHAMUS 



iident of the Puyallup & Sumner Fruit 



wers* Canning Company, who believes that 



the Oregon-Washington canning merger should 



result in great benefit to the fruit industry in 



the Northwest. 



ulative concerns that have not meant 

 very much to the up-building of our 

 particular community. 



While in Boston seven years ago, my 

 attention was called to a very fine team 

 of horses hauling a very heavy load of 

 wool on one of the principal streets. 

 Upon inquiry I was told that no sheep 

 were raised in that portion of the coun- 

 try, but that the wool was shipped in 

 from either Washington or Oregon. 

 This suggested to my mind the advis- 

 ability of manufacturing our wool at 

 home; and instead of shipping the raw 

 material to the manufacturing centers 

 of New England, it would be very much 

 better for us if we were able to furnish 

 employnn nl to tabor in our own com- 



munity and ship the finished product. 

 In fact, my mission to Boston was to 

 sell berries in barrels to the jam manu- 

 facturers in that city, but the object 

 lesson presented to me by the wool inci- 

 dent suggested that it was a good pol- 

 icy for the wool grower to have his 

 product manufactured into finished com- 

 modities at home, and that it was also 

 a good policy for the berry grower to 

 do the same thing. 



On going up to Portland, I found 

 thousands of tons of small white beans 

 were being shipped from the Pacific 

 Coast country to Boston for the pur- 

 pose of being manufactured into Boston 

 baked pork and beans, and that a very 

 large percentage of the codfish which 

 has created so much aristocracy in Bos- 

 ton was shipped from the state of Wash- 

 ington. 



A FTER viewing this condition I re- 

 -^*- solved to endeavor to help manu- 

 facture the bush berries of the North- 

 west into the finished product instead of 

 sending the raw material to Boston, as 

 we had formerly done. 



During the year of 1920, with a liquid 

 capital of about $300,000.00, the Puyal- 

 lup & Sumner Fruit Growers' Canning 

 Company did a business of more than 

 five million dollars for the reason that 

 the banks were willing to advance all 

 the money necessary to manufacture 

 the raw material into the finished prod- 

 uct providing the finished product was 

 sold under good and sufficient contracts 

 prior to being manufactured. 



Under such conditions our local or- 

 ganization did not require very much 

 capital, but now that the consumer is on 

 a strike and does not desire to purchase 

 anything unless it can be secured at less 

 than the cost of production, it is neces- 

 sary for all manufacturing plants to 

 have sufficient capital in the business 

 to operate in an orderly way. 



It has always been my vision that un- 

 less the grower made a fairly good 

 profit out of what he produces, he would 

 not be much of an asset. In other words, 



