ECONOMICS OF FRUIT MERCHANDISING 
day of our active season with every one 
of the 10,000 carload buyers of fruit in 
the United States and Canada. 
Foreign Markets 
Recognizing from the first the impor- 
tance of developing the foreign markets 
to their capacity, the exchange sent the 
writer to Europe last summer to make 
a personal study into the conditions and 
establish such connections as were neces- 
sary. As a result of that investigation 
the exchange decided to establish its own 
office in London under salaried manage- 
ment, and was most fortunate in the op- 
portunity of engaging as manager of the 
office a fruit man of unusual training 
and talents, trained in the business on 
both sides of the water. An exclusive 
agency was also established in Germany, 
the exchange agents controlling the only 
system of fruit branch houses in Europe. 
These branches are in Duisberg, Cologne, 
Essen, Frankfort, Mannheim, Leipsic, 
Dresden, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg, 
the headquarters being in Bremen. The 
managing director of the agency, by spe- 
cial arrangement, visited the Northwest 
in August and September, making a care- 
ful study of conditions here in order bet- 
ter to fit him for the work. 
Value of Foreign Markets 
However, I feel that there is danger of 
overestimating the capacity and the ex- 
tent of the foreign markets. In fact, I 
think they are already being very gener- 
ally overestimated. The fact is that the 
capacity of Germany at the present stage 
of her industrial development is not much 
over 250,000 boxes of Northwestern apples 
per annum, at profitable prices. More 
than that amount is being shipped there 
this season, but the results have been 
that for the past few weeks at every sale 
in Hamburg there have been from 20,000 
to 30,000 boxes of apples offered and out 
of each sale from one-third to one-half 
left unsold for lack of a bid. It must be 
remembered that by the time first cost, 
transportation, duty, interior freight, 
high taxes, ete, necessary to deliver a 
box of our apples to the interior of Ger- 
many, are added, the result is an article 
of luxury, which only the rich man can 
1315 
afford to buy. It is not for the man in 
the street who earns from two marks to 
four marks daily. Again, the great dif- 
ference in the value of money must be 
considered. Four marks, German, is about 
$1, American, so that a box of ap- 
ples which sells for $3 in Germany is the 
German equivalent to about 12 marks. 
But one mark (23.8) will buy in Ger- 
many, in the necessaries of life, what $1 
will buy in America. So that the man 
who pays $3 for a box of apples, or 12 
marks, is really exchanging, in terms of 
the necessaries of life, not 12 marks but 
$12. There are not many Americans who 
could afford to pay $12 per box for ap- 
ples. Nor are there many Germans. Per- 
haps when freight rates are lower, and 
as the condition of the working classes 
in Germany improves, ways and means 
may be found to increase the consump- 
tion materially. The foregoing is also 
true, to a large extent, of England as well 
as Germany. And even more so of other 
Huropean countries, where money is even 
cheaper than in Germany. Heavy duties 
limit the introduction of our apples in 
Russia; also in France. There is a small 
business in Scandinavia, but the total 
population is not great and the masses 
are poor. All of these markets are easy 
to congest, and under such conditions 
they are far less elastic than American 
markets of similar size, and are liable 
to slump very violently and disastrously. 
Outlet for Surplus 
I do not wish to be understood, from 
the foregoing, that I am not in favor of 
developing the foreign markets. On the 
other hand, the exchange has shown that 
it does believe in so doing, in the most 
practical way. But neither do I believe 
in building castles out of thin air. The 
foreign markets, in my judgment, will 
prove to us, as they have to most other 
American manufacturers, chiefly valuable 
as an outlet for our surplus, which we 
can use to take the pressure off our 
home markets. We shall have to make 
our money in our home markets, and, 
Save in exceptional years, will have to 
sell our goods in the foreign markets at 
something under American parity. There 
