44 



Member. How do you sell your apples? 



Mr. Bassett. We make contracts. Many of our apples were 

 sold this year in July, at from $3.50 to $3.65 per barrel, and I fur- 

 nished the barrel. 



Member. I would like to ask Mr. Bassett if he knows of any 

 successful operation of a central packing house for apples. 



Mr. Bassett. No sir, only in the West. Of course, there they 

 have the system in fine shape, — in Washington and Oregon. 



Member. Are the orchards pretty closely located? 



Mr. Bassett. Yes, they are. The people are simply driven to 

 co-operate. It costs them more to get a package of apples from the 

 Hood River Valley to Chicago market than it costs me to produce 

 our apples. It's this Western co-operation that sets us to thinking, 

 wondering what it's all going to mean. Do not be afraid of their 

 gobbling you up. I believe we have a future ; I do not believe they 

 will ever get it away from us, unless we allow them. It will depend 

 on us whether we shall have this business or whether we shall not. 

 They are raising a fancy apple — an apple they can not put upon the 

 market at a cheap price ; but you must remember that the large con- 

 suming public demand a cheaper apple. They cannot afford to pay 

 the high price ; and if my friend Mr. Repp can sell Wine Saps for 

 eight dollars a barrel, I glory in his ability. I am not so sectional, 

 however, as to believe that what is so in Michigan is so everywhere 

 else. But let us all be proud of our country. I am proud of Mich- 

 igan ; I think it is one of the best sections in the country. The lack 

 of transportation facilities and the extremely high price of land out 

 West makes it impossible for them to compete for the cheaper de- 

 mand. A man w^ho goes out there from here, will have to be satis- 

 fied with ten acres where it was customary for him to have a hun- 

 dred and twenty. He puts all the energy on those ten acres that he 

 previously had put on the hundred and twenty— intensive farming 

 against extensive farming. Could you not get better fruit if you 

 were to concentrate on ten acres the energy you are now expending 

 on say your hundred and sixty acres? 



Member. Your road-building; is that independent of the 

 State? 



Mr. Bassett. Yes ; this road-building is simply a local prop- 

 osition. If we build a stone road we get some state aid. 



Member. How do your fruit growers generally procure their 

 barrels up there? 



Mr. Bassett. We have to buy them from the local coopers. A 

 good many growers buy the stock — a car load or two — and have 

 their own cooper shops right on the farm. They make their own 

 barrels in the odd seasons, when they can have them made cheap. 

 When they sell their orchards, they sell the barrels with them. 



Member. Does the Fruit Growers' Association help in buying 

 barrels ? 



Mr. Bassett. Yes, we ship in a great many car loads of barrels 

 when they are shy. 



Member. Do you advertise for bids to supply barrels ? 



Mr. Bassett. No ; we go out on the open market and buy out- 

 right. We get propositions nearly every day for barrels, and every- 

 thing else. 



