CAANING AND PRESERJ'ING. 



405 



The main argument was that the factory owner re- 

 quired too good quality for the price paid, and that 

 the sorting or examining was often one-sided. In 

 many cases our correspondents said that the meth- 

 ods of examination were dishonest. 



"We take a wagon load of tomatoes to the fac- 

 tory ; if it happens that the season's crop promises 

 to be large, the examiner will complain that our to- 

 matoes are not well ripened, that the color is not up 

 to the mark and that many of them are not fit for 

 use. They make a general 'kick,' and wind up by 

 deducting some hundreds of pounds from the weight 

 of our load. If the injustice is so apparent that we 

 do a little 'kicking' 

 on our own account, 

 we are marked men, 

 and there is trouble 

 with everything w e 

 bring." So writes 

 one correspondent. 

 Another writes: "We 

 are not paid a fair 

 price for our pro- 

 ducts. W e deliver 

 tomatoes at S7 a ton, 

 and at that price, 

 together with the low 

 prices at which the 

 factory owners pro- 

 cure most of their 

 labor, when compar- 

 ed with the price the 

 consumer pays for 

 the catsup and can- 

 ned goods of Blank 

 & Co., I would sup- 

 pose there was 200 

 per cent, profit in the 

 business." (See com- 

 ment on cost of labor, 

 page 104, February 

 American Garden). 



As stated, the gen- 

 eral sentiment is that 

 too little is paid for the produce and that the differ- 

 ence between the cost of manufacture and the cost 

 to the consumer represents a profit entirely too large 

 to be considered fair to the grower who produced the 

 crops by hard labor. Here we come to the first 

 conflict between the producer and manufacturer. It 

 will be remembered that in our account of the inter- 

 views with canners, the claim was made that the 

 prices were uniformly good, and that, as a rule, the 

 grower could make more money growing for the 



The Star-Apple or Caimite, (See page 406 



factory than he could foi' the general market. (See 

 answers to question 3, page 436, December; also 

 to question 7, follov\-ing in this paper). This appears 

 to be another opportunity for further investigation, 

 which The American Garden will endeavor to fol- 

 low up to the profit of all concerned. 



The average proportion of land devoted to grow- 

 ing produce for the factories was fi\'e acres out of 

 fifteen, or one-third of the arable land. 



The replies to question six were largely in line w ith 

 the position taken by correspondents on (juestion 

 three, , location near a fair local market brought 

 negative replies to the question, and via versa. It 



was found that in the 

 majority of cases 

 when the grower was 

 not prejudiced by the 

 proximity of an un- 

 usually good market, 

 the ground was taken 

 that the markets for 

 the earlier crops and 

 the factories for all 

 later, was the proper 

 method of procedure. 



Question eight 

 seemed to be a poser 

 to most of our cor- 

 respondents, and the 

 answers were about 

 equally divided be- 

 tween for and against. 

 Question nine fared 

 the same way, and 

 possibly was not a 

 fair one to ask, 

 though the real an- 

 swer to it came out, 

 in the majority of 

 cases, as answers to 

 number ten, w h i c h 

 question was also an- 

 swered according to 

 whether the grower 

 had a market to fall back on or not. It was found 

 that in every case where the grower took any great 

 portion of his products to the factories, the opinion 

 was that without the factories the methods of crop- 

 ping would have to be changed or modified. 



•' I grow on an average ten acres of tomatoes each 

 year for the factories, taking to them also parts of 

 my crops of string beans, squashes, small and or- 

 chard fruits" writes a New Jersey grower. "With- 

 out the factories, I would be obliged to reduce my 



