136 
WISCONSIN HORTICULTURE 
June, 1919 
Wisconsin Horticulture 
Published Monthly by the 
Wisconsin State Horticultural Society 
12 N. Carroll St 
Official organ of the Society. 
FREDERIC CRANEFIELD, Editor. 
Secretary W. S. H. S., Madison, Wis. 
Entered as second-class matter May 13, 1912, 
at tire postoffice at Madison, Wisconsin, under 
the Act of March 3, 1879. 
Advertising rates made known on application. 
Wisconsin State Horticultural Society 
Membership fee, fifty cents, which includes 
twenty-five cents subscription price of Wiscon- 
sin Horticulture. Remit fifty cents to Frederic 
Cranefield, Editor, Madison, Wis. 
Remit by Postal or Express Money Order. 
A dollar bill may be sent safely if wrapped or 
attached to a card, and pays for two years. 
Personal checks accepted. 
Postage stamps not accepted. 
OFFICERS 
N. A. Rasmussen, President Oshkosh 
J. A. Hays, Vice-President Gays Mills 
F. Cranefield, Secretary-Treasurer Madison 
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
N. A. Rasmussen Ex-Officio 
J. A. Hays Ex-umcio 
F. Cranefield Ex-Officio 
1st Dist., A. Martini Lake Geneva 
2nd Dist., R. J. Coe Ft. Atkinson 
3rd Dist., E. L. Roloff Madison 
4th Dist., A. Leidiger Milwaukee 
6th Dist., Jas. Livingstone Milwaukee 
6th Dist., J. W. Roe Oshkosh 
7th Dist., Win. Toole, Sr Baraboo 
8th Dist., C. M. Seeker Tomah 
9th Dist., L. E. Birmingham Sturgeon Bay 
10 th Dist., F. T. Brunk Eau Claire 
11th Dist., Irving Smith Ashland 
BOARD OF MANAGERS 
N. A. Rasmussen F. Cranefield 
J. A. Hays 
Fort Atkinson for the Summer 
Meet 
The summer meeting of the 
State Horticultural Society will be 
held in Fort Atkinson in August. 
Tlie dates have not been fixed yet 
but will be announced in the July 
number of this paper. 
The meeting has usually been 
held the third week of August and 
it is quite likely that week will be 
selected. 
Altho Fort Atkinson’s invita- 
tion for both the 1917 and 1918 
meetings were turned down in fa- 
vor of other places the Fort 
people were good sports and final- 
ly won. 
The selection promises to be a 
perfectly good one. So far as the 
records show no Society meeting 
has ever been held in Fort Atkin- 
son or nearby. It is the home of 
a big nursery; small fruit growing 
is well advanced in the neighbor- 
hood altho tree fruit growing is 
not an important industry. For 
real “pep” and completeness of 
detail in organization as well as 
in final results, no city or town ex- 
celled Fort Atkinson in War Gar- 
den work. After the War Garden 
committee had, by persuasion or 
force, induced everybody without 
exception to plant a garden, they 
set a hen in every back yard and 
raised innumerable broods of 
chickens. While the local commit- 
tee has not yet reported, we have 
no doubt they have a hen or two 
on for us. 
Apple Buyers Convention 
The Annual Convention and Ap- 
ple Exhibit of the International 
Apple Shippers Association will 
be held in Milwaukee, August 
13th to 16th. 
The association is composed of 
apple buyers thruout the United 
States and Canada and maintains 
its home office in Rochester, N. Y. 
The very able secretary, R. G. 
Phillips, knows at the beginning 
of the buying season how many 
barrels and boxes of apples there 
are in the country, where they are 
and their condition. 
In the beginning of the organi- 
zation there was a certain air of 
exclusiveness about it, only buyers 
were welcome and there were 
many sessions, some open to the 
public and some not so open. 
Of late years, however, the 
whole attitude of the organization 
has changed and growers as well 
as buyers are welcome. In fact, 
many of the members, Senator 
Dunlap for one, are growers as 
well as buyers. 
The I. A. S. A. might easily have 
given the War Boards which were 
formed for the purpose of fixing 
prices some valuable pointers had 
they been so minded. They could 
have warned them that any price 
fixing agreement would last just 
as long as it took the fixers to get 
back home and get into the field 
to underbid the other fellow. 
The writer has attended the 
meetings of the I. A. S. A. for 
several years and lias discovered 
no attempts in recent years at 
price fixing. Such a plan simply 
wouldn’t work anyway and these 
big operators are wise enough to 
know it. The crop reports secur- 
ed at the expense of the associa- 
tion are avail abe only to members 
to which no one can seriously ob- 
ject. Aside from that there is no 
“inside” dope, there can be none. 
These men who handle millions 
of barrels of apples buy them for 
cash, place them in cold storage in 
Chicago, St. Louis, Buffalo and 
other places and sell them as de- 
manded by the small wholesalers 
and retailers. There is, no doubt, 
usually a profit in the transaction 
and these buyers are surely the 
“middlemen” so generously curs- 
ed by reformers. But until some 
one is wise enough to provide a 
better plan, possibly state owned 
storage plants, the cash buyers 
perform a valuable service to the 
grower. They provide a market 
for apples that is unlimited and 
the price, on the whole, is govern- 
ed by the supply. 
Wisconsin apple growers can 
well afford to attend this conven- 
tion and get acquainted with the 
buyers. 
Apple and plum trees make 
good ornamental trees for the back 
yard. Their fruits in the fall are 
more than ornamental. 
