Cooperation in Packing and Selling Fruit 



COOPERATION on the part of 

 growers in the packing and sale of 

 apples, or other fruit, has met with 

 unqualified success in every case where 

 any society or organization has been 

 conducted on a proper business footing. 

 Contrariwise, every case of failure in 

 cooperation can be traced to inefficient 



Dr. H. Johnson, Grimsby, Ont. 



is given to selling fruit. No grower who 

 looks after his orchards has time to 

 study markets. A salesman, on the other 

 hand, has Ittle else to do.' 



Practically speaking, therefore, the 

 success or failure of a cooperative or- 

 ganization is narrowed down to the ques- 

 tion of obtaining a good salesman and an 



EASTERN ONTARIO 



MCINTOSH RED 



PARIMENT OF AGRICULTURE. MORRISBURG. 



The Fruit Producing Possibilities of Eastern Ontario as Demonstrated at the Last Ontario 



Horticultural Exhibition 



management. Yet the fact remains that 

 there are still many fruit growers very 

 half-hearted, if not actually hostile, in 

 their attitude towards cooperation. It 

 will be found that growers of this class 

 are either unaware of the benefits to be 

 derived from cooperation on a business 

 basis, or else that they have been disap- 

 pointed in the results achieved by some 

 organization of which they have formed 

 part, and which has not had the advan- 

 tage of capable management. 



The trend of all modern business or 

 industrial operations is the sub-division 

 of labor ; and the greater the degree to 

 which this sub-division is carried, the 

 cheaper will prove the production or dis- 

 tribution of the goods, whatever they 

 may be, and the higher the ratio of 

 profit. Hence, on merely theoretical 

 grounds, cooperation in packing and sell- 

 ing fruit is a great step in advance, be- 

 cause it creates a sub-division in the 

 labor of the fruit grower, whose time 

 should be given entirely to raising pro- 

 duce and not to selling it. A fruit 

 grower may be, but as a rule is not, a 

 business man. In either case he is mak- 

 ing a mistake if he attempts to sell his 

 own fruit, because it may be. taken as 

 a sine qua non that better prices could be 

 secured by a salesman whose sole time 



efficient manager to look after the con- 

 concern. These two qualities may be 

 united in one man, and in small socie- 

 ties money could be saved by combining 

 the two functions. But in a large con- 

 cern, which handles a big amount of 



fruit, it is better to keep the manage- 

 ment and sales departments separate, 

 and have each under the charge of a 

 suitable man. 



That cooperation has benefitted the 

 grower in many sections is evidenced by 

 the prices now obtained for the produce 

 raised. In the case of apples a price fre- 

 quently offered by the buyer, and judg- 

 ed by the farmer to be a good one, was 

 one dollar a barrel on the tree. Many 

 sales, as a matter of fact, took place at 

 lower figures, and some were effected at 

 not more than fiftv cents. In sales of 

 this kind the buyers put up the pack 

 while the grower usually supplied labor 

 for picking. 



In Norfolk county, Ontario, under co- 

 operation the price to the grower for 

 the years 1909 and 1910 rose to two 

 dollars a barrel on the tree. The aver- 

 age f.o.b. price under the Norfolk as- 

 sociation was three dollars a barrel, 

 which is really equivalent to two dollars 

 on the tree, expenses being counted as 

 follow : Cost of selling, twenty cents ; 

 picking, fifteen cents ; packing, fifteen 

 cents; barrel, forty cents; hauling and 

 loading', ten cents ; total, one dollar. 



Around Oshawa the net return also 

 now averages two dollars a barrel on the 

 tree. In the Burlington district, which 

 has worked up an export trade to Eng- 

 land, the price to the grower averages 

 not less than two dollars ten cents on 

 the tree. 



The case of the Hood River (Oregon) 

 organization, however, supplies the best 

 argument in favor of cooperation. Be- 

 fore the Hood River . Apple Growers' 

 Union was formed the average price 

 realized by growers was one dollar 

 twenty-five cents a bushel box. Since 



Picking. Prunes in Mr. Stirling's Orchard, Kelowna, B.C. 



207 



