LOCAL HELP RECRUITED TO HANDLE MILLION-BUSHEL 



VOLUME — HALF OF CROP RUSHED TO MARKET 



/.--'BY TRUCKS ,^"/,:0^ '-■;■■■■"■:■: >■■■•-:'. 



Victory Farm Volunteers who helped out in the orchards in the 

 Centralia area were housed and fed in the Centralia High 

 School. Here they are shown in the school caieteria ior one of 

 their meals. Lunches were brought out to the orchards. Salem 

 High School also followed a similar plan. 



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Centralia with 250 workers, and one 

 at Salem with 91 workers. Eighty-four 

 Jamaicans were stationed in a camp 

 at Mt. Vernon, and 40 at the state park 

 camp at Makanda, near Carbondale. 



Baskets were as scarce as anticipated 

 and some peaches were sold in bulk. 

 In some cases packing sheds had to 

 shut down while baskets were shifted 

 from some other shed that temporarily 

 had a few extra containers. The Ex- 

 change did a good job in getting 50 

 carloads of baskets for growers. 



One of the major features of the 

 1944 deal was the excellent demand 

 for peaches. This demand continued 

 with limited exception throughout all 

 of the harvest. The bulk of the No. 

 1 two-inch peaches sold at the ceiling 

 price of $3.66 to the grower. Some 50 

 per cent of the crop in the Centralia 

 area was smaller than two-inch, but the 

 quality was good and the fruit was re- 

 markably free from worms and brown 

 rot. 



The demand for peaches undoubted- 

 ly was due to the points on canned 



goods which encouraged more home 

 preserving and by the increase in the 

 nurtiber of Illinois people who put 

 peaches in cold storage lockers. Some 

 of the growers were of the opinion that 

 if a ceiling had not been placed on the 

 1944 crop, the price would have gone 

 over $5 per bushel. Last year No. 1 

 peaches sold for $6 and $6.50 because 

 there was a short crop. 



Colvis said that he believed the state's 

 estimate of a 1944 crop of 1,300,000 

 bushels would be close to the actual 

 production figure. Lack of rain re- 

 duced the size of the peach this year, 

 and resulted in a lower figure in total 

 bushels. If weather conditions had 

 been normal the total bushelage would 

 have been larger than the state's esti- 

 mate as the number of peaches was very 

 great this year. 



Rains over the weekend of Aug. 

 19 and 20 helped to clean up the mar- 

 kets, but were responsible for some 

 over-ripe peaches, Colvis said. 



The Exchange served more growers 

 than ever before during the 1944 peach 



Leo J. Adams, veteran picker irom Fayette 

 county, reaches ior top ones in the or- 

 chard oi H. H. Thumess & Son. near Cen- 

 tralio. 



deal. In fact, the Exchange had as 

 many growers as it could take care of 

 under the limitations of wartime condi- 

 tions, i 



r» 



Howard Swartz. sales manager for the 

 Illinois Fruit Growers Exchange, checks 

 one of the many cars oi peaches the Ex- 

 change moved this season. 



Trucks line up in front the Illinois Fruit 

 Growers Exchange as a bumper crop oi 

 peaches moves to market. The Exchange 

 also moved a record bushelage oi 



peaches by rail this year. The situation 

 on trucks was better than expected, but 

 the transit job keep staff members busy. 



SEPTEMBER, 1944 



17 



