DEJffYDBATION OF FBUITS AND VEGETABLES. 19 



for the country, because the same principle that could be worked from 

 the Pacific coast can be worked in the East, South, and everywhere 

 else in the United States. 



Now, my desire is to make use of my hop kilns and make use of 

 my lands, and grow vegetables ; and unless the Government takes an 

 interest in the proposition there is no chance of this industry develop- 

 ing, because of the fact that it is not a patented process and it is not a 

 secret process. 



Senator Smith of Georgia. You have no financial interest in any 

 process for this purpose? 



Mr. HoEST. Absolutely none. 



Senator Smith of Georgia. It is just your suggestion that the 

 Government buy it in the interest of the public generally, without 

 compensation to anybody, as au incident to trying it ? 



Mr. HoEST. That is exactly it. In fact, 1 am making the fight 

 against a number of people who have started in now to take this 

 general proposition of dehydration and try to msike personal prop- 

 erty of it and make patented claims on it in order to float stock and 

 in order to queer the whole business before the country, but in any 

 publicity given to this proposition it ought to be made perfectly 

 plain that it is a proposition open to all and that anybody can do it. 

 The benefit I am personally going to get out of it is that I am going 

 to have better use of my lands than by raising hops. 



Senator Smith of Georgia. In other words, you would make a 

 market for the product you have not got now. 



Mr. HoEST. Yes, sir. If we tried to create a market for these 

 products by advertising it would cost at least $5,000,000 to develop 

 a dried fruit and vegetable product market to any substantial extent 

 within two or three years, while if our Government takes hold of it 

 and advertises it along the line that the product is good — and they 

 can find out overnight that it is good — and if then the Government 

 makes a very simple proclamation you will have every housewife 

 wanting the product, and when every housewife wants products you 

 can start in. 



Senator Eansdell. The consumer is going to derive a wonderful 

 benefit from the cheapness of it ? 



Mr. HoRST. The consumer gets the benefit from the cheapness; 

 the farmer gets the benefit from the better utilization of his lands. 

 For instance, to-day the growing of vegetables is confined, generally 

 speaking, to within 2 miles of a city. When you get 3 miles away 

 from a city you do not see any vegetable farms. I was on a little 

 motoring trip of some to or three hundred miles in southern Cali- 

 fornia last December, and when we would get 3 miles from a town 

 you would see the most beautiful orange groves and the ground 

 just as clean as a whistle and not a thing being grown between the 

 trees, if grown even between the young trees, and that land lies ab- 

 solutely idle and will not be of any benefit for many years, although 

 every inch of that land could be put into vegetables and be a benefit 

 to the whole country if there was an outlet for the product. But 

 under present conditions if they grow vegetables on the land and have 

 to rely on selling the product fresh or selling it to the canneries, 

 there is a slump in the market and the stuff rots and the farmer is dis- 

 couraged. Under this plan driers can be started by the farmers 



