114 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



marketed or treated in the same man- 

 ner as the products of our orchards? 



"What we need is more cooperaticjn 

 among Canadian growers and the retail 

 merchants and the consumers in Kurope. 

 If the retail merchants of lutrope were 

 interviewed, a large trade could be 

 worked up direct between the growers 

 and the retailers and consumers. It is 

 c()m])uled that Canadian apple growers 

 are p.aying away unnecessarily, on the 

 other side, in market dues, tolls, port- 

 erage, cartage and cataloguing 5500,000 

 to $750,000 yearly, and not only un- 

 necessarily, but for the privilege of 

 sending our goods to one or two centres 

 only for distributicm, to their disadvan- 

 tage. The time is not far distant, how- 

 ever, when the growers will wake up to 

 this fact, and, also, to the fact that there 

 may be other and better methods of 

 distribution all ready to their hand be- 

 side the auction channels of London and 

 Liverpool. 



"Who are the customers of the auc- 

 tioneers in these cities? Why cannot 

 we ship our goods to them direct? These 

 are questions that growers everywhere 

 in Canada, and in other countries too, are 

 asking themselves. The selling of fruit 

 by auction has a great many attendant 

 evils where there are competing firms, 

 imless one of them has the monopoly of 



the article sold, which is possible sorae- 

 limes, or the exclusive right to the at- 

 tendance of buyers, which is never pos- 

 sible. The fruit auctioneer, like every 

 other human being who has to work for 

 liis living, is naturally looking out for 

 himself, first and last, and in his hurry 

 to get rich he is not always the far-see- 

 ing and wise individual he might be. 

 vSometimes he injures the very people he 

 would protect, did he but stop to think 

 for a moment. Kor instance, I am told 

 the following is a common practice 

 amongst certain fruit auctioneers. When 

 one has got to sell 3,000 barrels of Can 

 adian apples on a certain day, and noti 

 fies his clients of the fact by printed bill, 

 and by notice on a large slate placed 

 near his auction stand, a rival firm, who 

 desire to lower their op]X)nent's prices, 

 also advertises a like quantity, although 

 they may not have any to sell. In this 

 way buyers arc drawn away from the 

 real .sale who are given plausible ex- 

 cuses by the second firm when they find 

 it has no apples to sell. In this way the 

 price of the fruit is kept down and a 

 man does not need to be told what this 

 means to the grower. Such work as this 

 leads to retaliation by the first firm and 

 the injury to the trade is thus extended. 

 "The apple crop of Canada is fast as- 

 suming enormous proportions. Our 



Cooperation in tKe Annapolis Valley* 



James H. Tvipper, Round HiU, N.S. 



THE only way fruit can be handled 

 satisfactorily is by cooperation. 

 The cooperative movement is bound 

 to result in great financial gain to or- 

 chardists. 



The fruit industry naturally divides 

 into two parts or sections: First, that of 

 production, and second, that of market- 

 ing. It is one thing to grow fruit suc- 

 cessfully, but it is another to market it 

 successfully. Production has to do 

 with planting the trees, caring for the 

 orchard and picking the fruit; market- 

 ing has to do with preparing for the 

 market, carriage to the market, and 

 selling in the market. We can suc- 

 cessfully deal with the former individ- 

 ually, but not so the latter. 



Every farmer can attend to his own 

 orchard, and with the information he 

 can get from agricultural colleges, ex- 

 perimental farms, agricultural papers, 

 model orchards and successful orchard- 

 ists, he should be able to produce the 

 best fruit at the least cost. Each man 

 can cultivate, fertilize, prune and spray 

 his orchard separately and in a certain 

 sense independent of his neighbor, but 

 he should cooperate with his brother 

 farmers to obtain a uniform package, 

 the best and cheapest transportation 



♦Read at -the last annual convention of the 

 Nova Scotia Fruit Growers' Association. 



service and the best method of dis- 

 posing of his stock. 



Cooperation among fruit growers 

 should have three aims or objects — 

 cooperation in transportation, in pack- 

 ing, and in selling. To cooperate in 

 transportation the fruit would have to 

 be collected from the growers, loaded 

 on steamers and delivered at the point 

 of shipment. Each operation would 

 need to be done in the most systematic 

 and business-like way. To do this 

 would require organization, and to 

 organize properly we should commence 

 at the inside and build outward. If 

 we are to cooperate successfully in 

 Nova Scotia, it will be necessary to 

 have the whole Annapolis Valley, or 

 as much of it as possible, organized. It 

 is better, for purposes of interior econ- 

 omy, that this organization should con- 

 sist of a number of smaller societies 

 working independently bilt under one 

 general management, rather than to 

 have one large association covering the 

 whole district. The plan already fol- 

 lowed is to form a branch society at 

 each shipping point, or in each locality 

 where it is thought best, and to elect 

 officers consisting of a president, sec- 

 retary and treasurer. 



The duties of the secretary and the 

 treasurer would be to record the min- 



utes of the meetings and receive any 

 monies for fees or collections that might 

 be made. The duties of the president 

 would be to look after the apples in 

 that district, notify the farmers when 

 to ship, order cars, attend to the load- 

 ing and billing of the same, and per- 

 form duties similar to the middlemen 

 or shippers of to-day. Delegates could 

 be appointed from these branches to 

 - choose a manager. The presidents would 

 form a directing committee to assist 

 and advise the manager in the general 

 direction of the business. 



The duty of the manager would be 

 to receive the apples at the point of 

 shipment, take all necessary precau- 

 tions against frost, look after loading 

 and consigning, and attend to the 

 business generally at his end of the 

 line. He would be expected also to 

 g^ve the members all the information 

 he could in respect to markets, crops 

 and prices, to make the best sales pos- 

 sible, receive and hand the orders over 

 to the presidents, and work entirely for 

 the interests of the grower. 



Each association would be incorjX)r- 

 ated and empowered to make rules and 

 by-laws governing its members. The 

 line of responsibility would run from 

 the grower to the manager. The pres- 

 ident would hold each member in his 



population is not increasing with suflfi 

 cient rapiditj' to be able to consume the 

 fruit, and consequently the British mar- 

 ket must receive each year much in- 

 creased quantities. The jjroblem we 

 have to face is how to market the fruit 

 to the best advantage. There are signs 

 that growers arc becoming more keenlv 

 alive to their interests, and that thev 

 have a desire to get into more direct 

 touch with the consumer and thus secure 

 for themselves more economic distrihu 

 tion than the present wasteful auction 

 systems of London and Liverp<xjl. Co 

 operation on the part of the growers is 

 the right key to the situation, and may 

 be the beginning of a system of distri- 

 bution similar to that adopted and 

 found sound by the fruit growers of 

 Southern California. It may be some 

 little time before the Canadian growers 

 arrive at this ideal stage, but it will 

 come, and God speed the time when 

 their representatives will take the place 

 of the present London and Liverpool 

 auction houses." 



Is it not time our Canadian growers 

 were taking action to remedy these mat- 

 ters? Readers of The Horticultur- 

 ist are invited to forward their views 

 for publication and to give the results 

 of their experience in the shipping of 

 fruit. 



