state; pomologicai. socie;ty. 6i 



THE SURPLUS PRODUCT. 



It is interesting perhaps in passing- just to notice some of the 

 ways in which they take care of their surpkis product, or their 

 second grade fruit, or their culls. All through that section there 

 are a great many evaporators. Many of these are merely cheap 

 wooden buildings with a capacity of 75 or 100 bushels of fruit 

 every 24 hours ; others are more elaborate brick structures having 

 a capacity of 500 and even a thousand bushels every 24 hours. 

 Most of the smaller ones are owned by the orchardists them- 

 selves and operated in conjunction with their orchards as a means 

 of disposing of their poorer grades of fruit. As a rule, the larger 

 ones are managed independently of any orchards, the owners 

 buying their stock for evaporating from the growers. 



While most of the fruit is packed at the orchard where it is 

 grown, some of it, particularly the earlier varieties of apples, is 

 brought to central points, usually some large packing house at a 

 railroad station, where it is handled by local buyers and shipped 

 mostly to southern cities ; large quantities of these early apples 

 go to Texas, — Dallas, Houston and some of the other large cities 

 of that state being important points of distribution. Apples 

 generally bring a good price when so handled. 



Southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas is also a 

 great strawberry growing region. Some growers have as high 

 as 75 or 100 acres devoted to this purpose. Nearly all of the 

 fruit is handled through local strawberry growers' associations, 

 the growers in the vicinity of any one shipping point constituting 

 the association in that locality. The grade of packing is main- 

 tained by inspectors who make rigid examination of all the fruit 

 as it is delivered for shipment. By combining in this way, the 

 fruit is shipped in carload lots, thus saving in transportation 

 charges, and the officers of the associations keep in the closest 

 possible touch with the markets so that the distribution of the 

 fruit 'is made with view to the demands and conditions of the 

 various points of distribution. The most of the fruit goes to 

 northern cities, such as Des Moines, St. Paul, Minneapolis and 

 other large places. Smaller quantities are also sent to western 

 points, especially to Denver. 



