244 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



HOW TO SELL THE CROP OF THE COMMERCIAL 

 ORCHARD AND GET FULL VALUE IN EXCHANGE. 



CARL VOLLENWEIDER, LA CRESCENT. 



If any one has a large crop of apples to sell, the first thing he 

 wants to do is to make himself acquainted with a few commission 

 men in Minneapolis, St. Paul and Chicago and have them keep 

 him posted as to the condition of their market. Any man, of 

 course, will keep an eye on his local market and keep that sup- 

 plied as long as he can not get better prices at a distant market. 



The next thing to do to get the most money for his apples 

 is to ship good fruit well packed. The old saying, "What's worth 

 doing at all is worth doing well," is nowhere more true than in 

 packing and selling apples. Pick your fruit into baskets or boxes; 

 then take them into a building and grade them and pack them 

 there. I think it pays well to make two grades of your apples; 

 the second grade will bring nearly as much per barrel as the mixed 

 ones would, and the first grade will bring much more. Seconds 

 can generally be retailed in the local market at a fair price. 



Duchess I would pick when quite green and ship them in half 

 bushel baskets. Farmers generally let their Duchess get too ripe 

 before picking; the consequence is that there is always a time 

 when the markets are flooded with a lot of poor, decaying fruit. 



Transcendent crabs will also bring better returns if shipped 

 in a small package, nicely graded and hand picked. Crookston, 

 Minn., is generally a good market for them. When it comes to the 

 later apples, such as Wealthy, Longfield, Northwestern Greening, 

 etc., it is necessary to study the apple market in the eastern and 

 southern states. If the crop all over the United States is good, and 

 winter apples are likely to be cheap, it is generally best to sell all 

 but the Wealthy as soon as the fruit is picked. Those I think it 

 pays to wrap in paper and store in a cool building, to ship in 

 October and November. I have noticed there is always a scarcity 

 of good eating apples about that time, eastern winter apples being 

 too hard yet to be good eating. The Wealthy is in its prime then, 

 and people are willing to pay a good price for them. 



I do not know much about cold storage, but if Wealthys can 

 be successfully kept in cold storage, they will sell all winter for 

 better prices than would eastern and southern apples. A small 

 package in this case also would be found most profitable. I believe 

 that as soon as a number of large commercial orchards get into, 

 bearing in any locality, the large fruit houses will send their rep- 

 resentatives to buy the fruit before it is picked, the same as they 

 do south and east of us. 



