THE CANNED FRUIT INDUSTRY IN CANADA 



" One of the greatest difficulties Ontario fruit 

 growers 'have to contend with is the ow prices 

 at which dates, prunes, dried apricots, pears, 

 etc., are shipped here from the south and Cali- 

 fornia, ana sold on our Canadian markets. The 

 duty on this fruit is so low that it is no obsta- 

 cle to the free sale of these goods, and conse- 

 quently these goods are serious competitors 

 against our canned Ontario fruit and vegeta- 

 bles." 



These views were expressed recently to The 

 Horticulturist by one of the officers of 

 the Canadian Canners' Co., Hamilton. " An- 

 other difficulty," continued Mr. Innes, "lies in 

 tlhe fact that our Canadian cities are so small 

 the demand for our canned fruits is very lim- 

 ited. Were the 35 canning factories owned by 

 our company to work at their full capacity they 

 could turn out enough goods in one year to sup- 

 ply the demand for two or three years. The 

 output of our factories last year was about 

 40,000,000 cans. 



"The duty on fine cane sugar, of $1.26 for 

 every ^ . pounds, is quite a serious handicap to 

 us when we compete for trade in the British 

 market. In Great Britain, where our trade, 

 although smal , is growing, we have to compete 

 against the goods offered from all parts of the 

 world. It is necessary, therefore, that we 

 should be able to offer our goods at as low a 

 rate as possible, and we find the duty on the 

 sugar we need for preserving purposes a serious 

 handicap. 



" There is no outlet in the United States for 

 any of our canned fruit, as the duty is entirely 

 prohibitive. The trade with the northwest is 

 good and is growing. There Is a great demand 

 on the part of some small towns throughout On- 

 tario for more canning factories. The people 

 who advocate the establishment of these fac- 

 tories do not appear to realize how small the 

 demand for canned fruit is. Were the demand 

 large enough to warrant us doing so, we could 

 readily establish factories in 150 towns in the 

 province that are calling for them." 



FRUIT THE OTTAWA MARKET DEMANDS 



G. W. HUNT^ OTTAWA. 



There are so many different views as to the 

 varieties of fruit that sell to the best advantage 

 in Ottawa it is difficult to enumerate them all. 

 A few kinds, however, are known to always 

 bring good prices. 



In the past few years Clyde strawberries 

 have sold remarkably well, with one or two ex- 

 ceptions, where the color has been very pale. 

 The consignments of several shippers have sold 

 at the top of the market. The William, while 

 a good carrying (berry, does not appear to have 

 the sympathy of the buyers to aiiy great extent. 

 There are two or three other new varieties com- 

 ing in which are not named on this market, or 

 sold as any particular variety that sell well. 

 If fruit growers would name their berries and 

 all other fruit it would in the end be very bene- 

 ficial to them. This applies particillarly to 

 peaches, as 90 per cent, of all the yellow flesh 

 peaches sold on this market are sold as Craw- 

 fords, when in reality only about 20 per cent, of 

 that class of peaches are Crawfords. The trou- 

 ble is, the average householder either telephones 

 his order or sends some person else to buy his 

 peaches. He asks for Crawfords, and invaria- 

 bly the dealer sends anything that has yellow 

 flesh like a ^rawford peach. 



When the peaches are canned and used 

 the buyers find them very fine, and the next 

 season still want Crawfords, believing they are 

 using a Crawford peach, when it is some other 

 variety. The naming of peaches would, of 

 course, be detrimental to new varieties coming 

 in, but in the end would be money in the pock- 

 ets of the growers, as they would introduce 

 every new variety permanently in that way. 



In the demand for plums there does not ap- 

 pear to be any great difference so long as they 

 are either blue, red or green. Buyers do not 

 even ask for Green Gages, but when they do 

 they are sold Reine Claudes, Washingtons, or 

 anything else. To my mind the "Reine Claude 

 is much superior for canning purposes to the 

 old-fashioned Green Gage, and it sells for more 

 money. 



The best selling varieties of pears are Bart- 

 letts, Clapp's Favorites, Louise Bonne, Sheldons,- 

 Buerre d'Anjou, Buerre Clairgeau. The Keiffer 

 is a very slow seller. 



FOIvLOW the; CAII.FORNIA STYI^e; op PACKAGE. 



It appears to be a difficult matter to change 

 buyers' views on packages. My own impres- 

 sion is that if all the fruit were done up in the 

 California style it would pay the grower in th'i 

 course of a year or two. The only objection- 

 able feature to the baskets is the fact they are 

 too wide and not long enough. When they lu^ 

 piled eight to ten high the ends of the baskets 

 are liable to sink into the fruit in the under 

 tiers. If the baskets were half an inch nar- 

 rower and an inch longer there would be a good 

 firm basis for them to rest on the baskets 

 underneath. No matter how high the baskets 

 were piled there would be no danger of the bot- 

 tom tiers being damaged in any way, providing 

 of course they were not piled high enough to 

 break the basket outright. The sooner the 

 growers get down to using a six and a twelve - 

 quart basket, with no others, the better for all 

 parties concerned, as ten-quart baskets are only 

 injuring the trade. 



We always read The Horticulturist with in- 

 terest. It is worth reading. — J. J. H. Gregory, 

 Marblehead, Mass. 



We consider The Canadian Horticulturist a 

 very valuable paper. — (German Kali Works, 99 

 Nassau street. New York City. 



312 



