370 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



fruit, and people will ask for Missouri river apples — "the apples 

 with the taste." 



We want to work up to the point where we have a common 

 brand and then advertise that brand. We can educate the 

 consumer to our mutual profit. No, you will not have to cut 

 out your Ben Davis trees and plant the juicy Jonathan. There 

 is no better apple than the Ben Davis; — when it is baked. Tell 

 the consumer that you are selling him a cooking apple. Would 

 a certain big manufacturer be fool enough to put out his imi- 

 tation of coffee in the same kind of a box with the same direc- 

 tions for using as he does his breakfast foods? Let's get to- 

 gether and educate the consumer. Who is going to advertise 

 the apple? The man who grows it — and make every man pay 

 for that advertising who gets the benefit of it; don't advertise 

 the apple unless you advertise the brand that is fixed to that 

 apple, a brand that stands for honesty of pack. We cannot 

 advertise the apple effectively until we organize. We cannot 

 compete with other big business concerns until we organize. 

 We must act as a unit, and let that unit be composed of in- 

 dividual growers, each of whom has an equal voice in saying 

 what that unit will do. We are done with the day of the local 

 apple buyer, I hope. 



Our Missouri valley brand will be advertised to the world 

 and it will signify more than excellence in the one fruit, apples. 

 Who has tasted finer small fruits than those grown in our Mis- 

 souri river loess hills? Where do small fruits grow as abun- 

 dantly? Where is there a more prosperous, live, up-to-date 

 fruit growing community than the one just across the Missouri 

 river — I refer to the Wathena, Kan., Fruit Growers' Associa- 

 tion. Why should our good mid-western people drink grape 

 juice made in New York when they have the best of the world's 

 grape soils on sale at twenty-five to sixty dollars an acre? 

 Association communities know what can be done with grapes 

 in Missouri river loess soil, and I want to tell you that it was 

 an inspiration to me when I traveled through your glorious 

 country last fall and saw mile after mile of beautiful rolling 

 country covered with grape vineyards and berry fields. Our 

 district is coming into its own and I hope that this meeting 

 may hasten the day. 



I have talked too long. Just a brief outline of the second 

 purpose of the meeting, the organization of an interstate bureau. 

 Last summer our office made quite an effort to supply Missouri 



