July, 1916. 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



167 



are swelling, or about two weeks be- 

 fore blossoming, are effective — many 

 times more so in fact than later appli- 

 cations. The scale control strength of 

 lime-sulphur as a dormant spray will 

 control leaf curl at the same time. It 

 is scarcely possible to do more than 

 check a little secondary leaf infection 

 rt this time. 



The consequences of the loss of leaves 

 may be rather serious when the loss is 

 excessive. The most apparent results 

 are dropping of the fruit, with general 

 I'eduction of the vigor of the diseased 

 trees. Commonly the diseased trees 

 form new leaves, in fact ripen fruit 

 l)iids, as well as the reduced crop of 

 iVuit. 



It seems probable that as an immedi- 

 ate measure of relief (date, June 8) 

 some good will come from spraying the 

 peach ti-ees with the self-boiled lime- 

 sulphur spray mixture, making two ap- 

 plications at intervals of two or three 

 weeks. No strength of commercial 

 lime-sulphur concentrate or of home- 

 boiled concentrate is safe to apply on 

 peach trees in foliage. Self-boiled lime 

 sulphur is made at the rate of ten 

 pounds stone lime, ten pounds flowers 

 of sulphur, to fifty gallons. Peach 

 groovers are warned that the real mea- 

 sures for leaf curl prevention are to be 

 used in the spring before the blossoms 

 open, and that tardy and ineffective 

 treatments are rarely satisfactory. 



Marketing Tender Fruits 



C. W. Baxter, Dominion Fruit Division, Ottawa 



THERE is no product of the soil or 

 manufactured article over which 

 the producer, shipper or manu- 

 lurer exercises so little control in mar- 

 keting as in the marketing of tender 



nits. This may, at first thought, ap- 



ar to be a drastic statement, but let 

 tiic fruit grower try to enumerate the 

 commodities which he must purchase 

 where the price is not definitely stated 

 l)y the merchant and he will find that 

 they are few, if any. In fact, for many 

 commodities, the price asked b.v the re- 

 tail merchant, is fixed by the producer 

 ni- manufacturer. 



To make a •direct comparison be- 

 en staple products and tender fruits 



fuld be unfair because the very per- 

 ishable nature of the latter makes this 

 impossible. Nevertheless, there are cer- 



tain fundamental principles lacking in 

 our present marketing methods which, 

 if applied, would eliminate much of the 

 "gambling" element, which is very 

 evident, and would put the fruit indus- 

 try on a more solid business basis. 



In a season of short crops it does not 

 I'cquire any great salesmanship ability 

 to market the fruit, the demand being- 

 greater than the supply. In a year of 

 ))ig crops, the usual method is to sell 

 all possible on an f.o.b. basis, and the 

 balance is consigned to the various 

 markets without control. In other 

 words, the producer hauls the product 

 of his hard woi-k to the shipping sta- 

 tion and "lets go"; he "takes a 

 chance." 



Scareely a season passes without a 

 public outburst of condemnation of the 



An id(M, or Ihe cliaraoter of the spray, driven by this "dusting" machine in the orchard of 

 W. H. Gibson, Newcastle, Ont., may here be obtained. (Photo by R. S. Duncan.) 



middleman; his name has been synony- 

 mous with the "increase in the cost of 

 living." We have heard and read a 

 lot during the past few years about 

 marketing direct from "producer to 

 consumer" and the elimination of the 

 middleman. This may be desirable, but 

 it is not practical. The middlemen are 

 the distributors, and whether or not 

 we are satisfied with their methods of 

 distribution and the toll they exact, we 

 must have distributors. If it were pos- 

 sible and desirable to eliminate the 

 army of distributors now employed in 

 marketing tender fruits, others would 

 have to be substituted. To nmrket ten- 

 der fruits, we must have distributors, 

 and the bigger the army of distributors 

 the wider will be the distribution, 

 greater will be the consumption, and 

 better will be the returns to the grower 

 or shipper. 



The fruit grower or shipper cannot 

 do without the distributors ; they are 

 essential ; therefore it should be the 

 business of the fruit growers and ship- 

 pers or their i-epresentatives to keep in 

 close touch with the distributors. In 

 order to emphasize this fact, a brief 

 review of the methods employed by an 

 Old Country tea firm, some years ago, 

 might be of value. This firm sold pack- 

 age teas, and in order to add "distinc- 

 tion" to their goods, confined their 

 sales to one or two stores in each cit.y, 

 stores which catered to what is termed 

 the "high class trade." Finally realiz- 

 ing that to limit the number of dis- 

 tributors was to limit the sale of their 

 goods, they changed their method and 

 placed the distribution of their goods 

 in the hands of the wholesalere, fixing 

 the minimum quantity of sale to one 

 case. The result was a tremendous in- 

 crease in sales, but they were still 

 limited, owing to the minimum quan- 

 tity of one case being too great for a 

 large portion of small distributors. 

 These restrictions were removed, with 

 the result that there is scarcely a store^ 

 big or small, who are not selling this 

 firm's goods to-day, and the total sales 

 have l)cen tremendously increased. 

 Other Agencies Used. 



The pi'oducei- or manufacturer, in 

 'iianv cases such as this, does not de- 

 pend entirely on the efforts of the 

 wholesaler to sell to the retailer. They 

 have their own representatives con- 

 stantly going the rounds of the retail- 

 ers, talking up and soliciting orders for 

 their goods which they turn over to 

 the wholesaler. The producer or manu- 

 facturer does not depend entirely on 

 the retailer's efforts to sell to the con- 

 sumer; he makes use of advertising 

 mediums of various kinds to create the 

 demand. In this way the producer or 

 nianufactnrer has absolute control of 

 his product from production to con- 

 sumer through the established trade 

 channels. He first creates the demand 



