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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 



Financing the Fruit Grower. 



The additional financing of the Ore- 

 gon prune crop made necessary by 

 unfavorable weather and adverse mar- 

 keting conditions by the bankers of 

 Oregon is cause for widespread satis- 

 faction upon the part of the fruitmen 

 of that state, and, furthermore, is a 

 signal tribute to the confidence that 

 bankers have in the solidity of the 

 methods of the Oregon Growers' Co- 

 operative Association. It is also an 

 acknowledgment from financial powers 

 high up in the banking world that they 

 are willing to stand behind the collec- 

 tive bargaining organizations of the 

 fruitmen and farmers where they are 

 organized on a sound basis. The loan 

 advanced to the Oregon Growers' Co- 

 operative Association for the purpose 

 of carrying its members through an 

 unforeseen and unpreventable critical 

 period was no mere bagatelle, but the 

 round sum of $500,000. 



As a result, the greater part of the 

 immense prune industry of the state 

 which is in the hands of the Oregon 

 association is being carried safely along. 

 Instead of having to wait for their 

 money until the prunes are sold, grow- 

 ers are being advanced from two to five 

 cents per pound when they are deliv- 

 ered at the warehouse of the associa- 

 tion. This is being made possible by 

 turning the warehouse receipts for the 

 fruit over to the bankers as collateral. 



Of course, an individual with a large 

 tonnage and good security would prob- 

 ably be able to secure financial assist- 

 ance for the same purpose, and then 

 again he might not. The significance 

 of the transaction, however, is in the 

 fact that a big organization as a unit, 

 with big resources and a trained mar- 

 keting force, presents to the banker a 

 security that the average fruit grower 

 does not possess. It was this fact that 

 the Portland clearing house of bankers 

 took into consideration when they ad- 

 vanced this big loan and will take into 

 consideration in future in financing the 

 affairs of the Oregon Growers' Associa- 

 tion or other large agricultural enter- 

 prises. 



Advertising Will Do It. 



The announcement of the Interstate 

 Commerce Commission that the increase 

 in freight rates on Northwest fruit must 

 stand is a severe blow to the fruit grow- 

 ers of this section, for it means that this 

 additional fixed charge must be taken 

 care of by a lessened cost of production 

 or a greater price for box apples. 



Already Eastern growers, who are 

 much nearer the big markets, are ex- 

 pressing their satisfaction over the de- 

 cision. They admit the superiority of 

 Western box fruit and believe the 



BETTER FRUIT 



higher price it must sell at will work 

 much to their advantage. 



However this may be, the fact still 

 remains that the box package of apples 

 — that is, such apples as are grown in 

 the Northwest — is becoming more and 

 more popular and is taking a firmer 

 hold on the public. It remains, there- 

 fore, for the box apple grower to bring 

 to the attention of the public on a much 

 wider scale than ever before the merits 

 of box fruit, and advertising will do it. 

 With millions of consumers in this 

 country and abroad who will not quib- 

 ble over an additional quarter or half 

 dollar for the finest quality of fruit in 

 an attractive and easily handled pack- 

 age, advertising seems to present the 

 most feasible plan of meeting the han- 

 dicap of an extra marketing cost. 



No Cause for Worry. 



The fact that the apple crop of the 

 country is not moving to market as 

 rapidly as it did last year and in some 

 other years we do not think is any 

 cause for worry. The crop this year is 

 not so large that it will swamp the 

 markets of the world and a lessened 

 demand now undoubtedly means a 

 strong demand in the future. 



In the Northwest, with its reduced 

 crop and the building of many storage 

 houses during the past year, growers 

 are in better shape to await the later 

 demand than ever before. According 

 to government reports, growers and 

 associations who do not believe they 

 are being offered prices sufficiently high 

 to justify them in selling their crops 

 are placing their fruit in storage, and 

 in fact statistics show a greater quan- 

 tity of box apples in storage at this 

 season of the year than ever before. 

 The fruit, therefore, should be fed out 

 to the market as it is needed at favor- 

 able prices. 



With the inferior fruit produced 

 abroad cleaned up, the export trade 

 should show a decided picking up, 

 while in this country the settlement of 

 the election should have the effect of 

 strengthening the demand for all com- 

 modities. We look, therefore, for a suc- 

 cessful but not a bonanza year for the 

 apple grower, notwithstanding some of 

 the present handicaps. 



An Adventure in Grafting. 

 J. M. Scroggs, two miles northeast of 

 Colville, Washington, according to a 

 report from Spokane, is a horticultural 

 genius. He has forty-one varieties of 

 fruit growing on one tree in his 

 orchard. Starting with a Ben Davis 

 apple tree about thirteen years ago, he 

 began grafting different varieties of 

 apples and pears on this tree. He says 

 all the varieties are flourishing and that 

 he has the earliest and the latest apples 

 grown in Stevens County and all from 

 this one tree. The apples are said to 

 range in color from a brilliant yellow- 

 to a dark red and in taste from the 

 sourest to the sweetest. The tree has 

 been bearing fruit for seven years. The 

 size of the fruit ranges from the size of 

 a marble to 20 ounces in weight. 



Noz'ember, IQ20 



What the Papers Interested 

 in Fruit Are Saying 



The problem of the nurseryman is so com- 

 plex that only men of courage and resource 

 are willing to tackle it, no matter what the 

 temptation of high prices. Indeed, this whole 

 question of prices itself requires a lot of 

 examination. 



A rise of 1000 per cent in prices sounds 

 fascinating, but if one begins too low the sum 

 is not very great in the end. One thousand 

 per cent on nothing, even when adder* to the 

 original base number, is not very mi h. The 

 simple fact is that prewar prices o* nursery 

 stock were too low. In many cases ick sold 

 for less than the cost of production ?ss even 

 than the prewar cost of production. common 

 price for apple trees was ten dr s a hun- 

 dred. A fair price would have -n eighteen 

 to twenty dollars. 



Now, with labor practically d in cost 



and often unobtainable at any vith the 



cost of all other items more th .inied, the 



nurseryman cannot figure a prow, un his trees 

 unless he can see ahead of him a price of 

 thirty-five to fifty dollars a hundred. The trees 

 which he propagates this year, 1920, will be 

 ready for market in 1923. Will the fruit grow- 

 ers by that time be ready to take them at those 

 prices? Or will the wildcat growers of nursery 

 trees be ready with their job lots of cheap 

 stock to bid down the market again? Really, 

 it is a question. 



Speaking of the rising cost of materials for 

 the nurseryman, let us notice the one import- 

 ant item of stocks. Practically all growers of 

 apple trees buy their stocks, and these now 

 cost anywhere round sixty to one hundred 

 dollars a thousand, instead of six to seven 

 dollars three years ago or three dollars and a 

 half to four dollars ten years ago. That means 

 a percentage of advance about equal to what 

 the nurseryman is now passing on to the 

 orchardist. The fact is that there is just as 

 great a shortage of apple stocks relative to 

 demand as there is of two-year-old apple trees. 

 It is estimated that there is a total supply for 

 the year of 7.000,000 apple seedlings, as against 

 a normal turnover of 70,000,000. And nursery- 

 men pay whatever is asked if only they can 

 get the goods. 



Thus it happens that some of them are 

 actually paying ten cents apiece for seedling 

 apple roots before propagation begins. That 

 is as much as the full-grown two-year-old 

 budded apple tree used to cost. Then if we 

 figure a fifty per cent shrinkage between the 

 seedling and the orchard stage, which is about 

 a fair estimate, we discover that we have 

 already invested twenty cents each in our trees 

 for the planting of 1923, and we have not reck- 

 oned anything yet for the nurseryman and all 

 his expenses. 



In sober times before the military disturb- 

 ance our American nurserymen bought the 

 seedling apple stocks on which they bud or 

 graft all our standard varieties from two 

 sources. The domestic supply came largely 

 from Topeka, Kansas, where in the deep, fer- 

 tile alluvium of the Kansas bottoms the clean- 

 est, straightest and strongest roots were de- 

 veloped. The foreign supply . came chiefly 

 from France, and mainly from o-Mmilar river- 

 flood plain along the valley of Loire about 

 Angers. The French stocl 1 more, but 

 were generally considered to be netter. 



Well, when the war came the French nurs- 

 eries were wrecked and that source of supply 

 was diminished nearly to the vanishing point. 

 That made little difference in 1918 and 1919, 

 when nobody wanted to propagate apple trees 

 anyway, but it makes a great difference in 

 1920, when everybody wants to resume opera- 

 tions on an enlarged scale. The Kansas grow- 

 ers of stocks likewise went numerously out of 

 the business during the European hostilities. 

 and even now they are slow to get back to tin- 

 old trade. There are difficulties still back of 

 them. 



Take notice that to grow apple seedlings re- 

 quires apple seeds, and the same circumstances 

 which put out of business the nurseryman and 

 the stock grower simultaneously floored the 

 collector and purveyor of apple seeds. The 

 American source of supply has been estab- 

 lished chiefly in a few Localized collectors in 

 New Hampshire, Vermont and Northern New 

 York. When the fruit growers stopped plant- 

 ing orchards the nurserymen stopped propa- 

 gating trees and the stock growers stopped 

 growing stocks and the seed collectors stopped 

 washing out the apple pomace from the cider 

 mills and went to cutting cord wood for the 

 fuel market. So the chain was broken in ever > 

 link. — The Country Gentleman. 



