STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 121 



FACTORS IN MARKETING AND DISTRIBUTION OF 



APPLES. 



J. C. Orcutt, Secretary Committee on Agriculture of the Boston 

 Chamber of Commerce. 



(An Illustrated Lecture). 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



I assure you that I am very glad to be here. I am not certain 

 that I can give you such information as you would like, but 

 will speak to you for about twenty-five minutes on the consump- 

 tion and distribution of apples. Who are the users and the 

 buyers of these apples? And then, if you would like to ask me 

 questions, I would be glad to answer them, if I can. If I cannot, 

 I will readily say so. 



APPLES HARVESTED IN FOUR WEEKS, BUT MARKETED AND USED 

 FIFTY-TWO WEEKS. 



These apples which you people grow commercially are all 

 harvested in about four weeks of the year — one month's time. 

 Now at that time there are only 4-52 of the crop consumed. 

 That is, every week of the year consumes 1-52 of that crop, 

 and in these four weeks of the time you are harvesting this 

 crop there are 4-52 consumed. In other words, there is picked 

 and offered for sale twelve times as much each week as the 

 market will ordinarily consume. Therefore, these apples must 

 be stored, until each 52d rolls by, either in the cellar of the 

 producer or in cold storage houses of the cities. In the country 

 the ordinary run of consumers buy two to six or eight barrels 

 of apples in the fall and put them down cellar. That takes care 

 of most of their demands. 



CITY consumers' wants. 



The average consumer in the city only buys what he wants 

 from day to day, or week to week, that is 95% of them. 



Now then, just a moment, let us consider the mass of con- 

 sumers that we have, because they are the people that you 

 must take into account if you wish to market your apples in a 

 profitable way. You know no one can sell you an article that 



