156 



The Journal of Heredity 



now they are ready to put their pet 

 products (Ml the market. But, alas, 

 there is no market. They have con- 

 vinced themselves that the fruit or the 

 vegetable is better in some respects than 

 wliat their neighbors are growing, and 

 that there are good reasons why it should 

 be grown over a considerable area of 

 land, but they have spent all the money 

 they could spare in the growing of 

 their i)roduct and they have never con- 

 sidered the selling end. They have 

 done what the farmer has done so often, 

 neglected the selling end of the propo- 

 sition. 



ADVERTISING TOO COSTLY 



Now it is entirely beyond the limits 

 of the pocket books of any man or small 

 body of men to put up the money for 

 the advertisement of a new vegetable. 

 Advertising is expensive, and the prices 

 paid by the big manufacturing firms 

 would be out of the question jfor the 

 producer of a new vegetable. He sim- 

 ply could not do it. Before one got 

 back in sales the money which he put 

 into advertising he would find that 

 some one else was growing the same 

 or a similar product and reaping the 

 benefits. 



Is this state of affairs to be always 

 left to the helter-skelter competition of 

 food manufacturers with secret pro- 

 cesses, and the manufacturers of foods 

 which are so well known that only 

 superior quality counts anyway? 



If it is important for the people that 

 these new plants should be developed 

 into plant industries, then it seems to 

 me tliat a market for them must be 

 created and the necessary advertising 

 be done by the Government. 



>[AkKi:'l' HARD TO SKCFRD 



This doctrine is the result of experi- 

 ence, not merely an office view of the 

 situation. I ha\e had the experience 

 of seeing farmers become interested in 

 a n^w industry, of seeing them plant 

 several acres to a new crop, and then. 

 when the harvest time came, discover 

 that nobody was going to helj:) them 

 a<lvertise the fruit or the vegetable; 

 and, not being men of large means, 

 their enthusiasm has nielleil ;i\\a\' and 



the industry, which deserved a larger 

 try-out and a fuller experience, has 

 died out for lack of advertising. Had 

 1% of the money spent every month 

 in the advertising of some new 

 brand of chewing gum been available 

 for the new and wholesome food, sales 

 could have been made, the growers en- 

 couraged to go ahead, and a new plant 

 industry established. In the one case 

 a new chewdng gum, made from the 

 same ingredients as any other, has su])- 

 l)lanted some other chewing gum with 

 absolutely no good results as far as the 

 pubhc is concerned; in the other the 

 death of an industry which would have 

 brought new land areas under cultiva- 

 tion and made safer for the future our 

 agriculture and more secure our food 

 supplies of the future. 



DISEASES MUST BE COMBATTED 



For it must not be supposed by the 

 public that there is any certainty that 

 we shall be able always to combat the 

 epidemic diseases of plants. Nor must 

 it be forgotten that these may gain in 

 virulence with the extension of the 

 areas planted. Nature is not made in 

 any one mold, and each case will have 

 to be fought out singly, ^^'e have spent 

 hundreds of thousands of dollars try- 

 ing to grow the old world grape in the 

 Eastern States of America and have 

 utterly failed. The history of the 

 ])ioneers in the establishment of the 

 .\nierican grape industry is illuminat- 

 ing in this connection. This industrv 

 deserved to have a much smoother i>ath 

 and to have sacrificed many less 

 pioneers. 



Under our very eyes today the same 

 kind of a struggle is going on in the 

 South wdiere the delicious Scui^jier- 

 nong grape is being developed, and the 

 growers are trying, without organiza- 

 tion, and with only half-hearted gov- 

 ernment aid, in the form of advice and 

 experimental work, to create a market 

 for what is in real'ty a delicious new 

 drink. Al the same time a single con- 

 cern with a mixture of California grape 

 juices lias worked U]) a trade in a new 

 drink and is selling it by the carload. 

 This new drink has been built up by 

 concentrating capital on the sini])le mat- 



