American Agriculturist, October 18, 1924 
267 
How Wormy Fruit Ruins the Market 
Apple-eaters Do Not Want Their “Meat” that Way 
Editors’ Note: —The following is a very frank letter 
written by Mr. C. M. Palmer. of the Williams and 
Cunnyngham Advertising Agency of Chicago to Mr. J. B. 
Greiner, representing the Standard Farm Papers, of 
which group American Agriculturist is a member. 
We received a copy of the letter and found it so interesting 
and on the whole so filled with such good common sense 
about the old apple trees to be found on every farm, that we 
asked for and received permission to publish the letter. 
Mr. Palmer was formerly connected with the Western 
Fruit Jobbers ’ Association, so he is very familiar with 
fruit marketing conditions. 
We might add to the thoughts in Mr. Palmer s letter that 
the uncared for f ruit trees on the average farm not only do 
not bring any revenue, but moreover, they are a prolific 
breeding place for all of the diseases and insects which 
attack fruit trees. Therefore, these uncared for trees are a 
source of danger to every fruit grower in the 
country. 
will find it in the few neglected apple trees or 
other fruit trees in the garden lot. If the farm 
wife will take an interest in the money-making 
possibilities of the orchard, she will help agricul¬ 
ture and incidentally help business, generally. 
I was in Iowa recently with a plan for the 
advertising and better marketing of apples. This 
plan is built around the idea of selling the home 
production to the home folks. The men who sell 
fruit in the state—the wholesalers and the re¬ 
tailers—approved the plan, but said it couldn’t 
be worked in Iowa because the state produces too 
many wormy apples. “What happens to these 
wormy apples?” was my natural question. “Oh, 
they are dumped on the market for what they will 
R EFERRING to our conver¬ 
sation today on the subject 
of fruit advertising in its 
relation to the farm press, it 
occurs to me that your publication 
could have a very beneficial effect 
upon the development of paid pub¬ 
licity in the interest of farm products 
and could serve a very useful purpose 
to the farmer himself by going to him 
with the information that he is some¬ 
thing more than a mere agriculturist. 
He is a manufacturer, but he will 
never attain the strong position he 
desires in commerce until he comes to 
a full realization of this fact and its 
bearing upon his responsibilities and 
relationships with the consumer. 
For instance, there is local apple 
production in almost every agricul¬ 
tural state in the Union. Next to 
potatoes and grain, the apple is the 
most staple article grown on farms. 
Yet how many of the readers of your 
publications realize its immense im¬ 
portance as an article of commerce? 
Very few, except in those states 
wherein apple culture is a specialized 
industry. Iowa is thirteenth among 
the states in the production of apples, 
but only one-seventh of her annual 
crop is considered fit for commercial 
use. And when I say fit for commer¬ 
cial use from the standpoint of Iowa 
production, I mean far from fit for 
commercial use from the standpoint of 
specialized apple production as known 
in the Northwest. 
There is scarcely a farmhouse in any 
of the Mid-Western, Central or East¬ 
ern States but has its few or many 
apple trees. For the most part these trees are the 
most neglected and least profitable of the farmer’s 
possessions. Yet they are potential money¬ 
makers, and every influence that is interested in 
the betterment of farm life ought to take a hand 
in turning the dooryard orchards from liabilities 
to assets. Not so long ago the poultry and dairy 
money earned on the farm was considered the 
housewife’s personal “graft.” She tended the 
chickens, fed them from kitchen scraps, gathered 
the eggs, marketed the pullets and spring friers, 
and bought herself a gingham dress with the 
proceeds. The same was true of dairy products. 
The housewife did a large share of the milking, 
all of the churning, and she kept the few dollars 
this branch of farming brought in. 
And then the farmer discovered that there was 
money in poultry raising and dairying. Your 
publications and the state agricultural schools 
and other agencies helped him to realize the safety 
in diversification offered by these pursuits, and 
the good housewife lost her “graft,” to get it back 
in the shape of greater prosperity on the farm. 
Now, perhaps, she is looking for another unplowed 
held in which to sow the seeds of her energy and 
industry to make a nest-egg for Christmas shop¬ 
ping or the children's education. I believe she 
Copyright, 1924, New York Tribune. Inc. 
What good is our immigration law, anyway, if it won’t keep out 
such undesirables ? 
—Darling in the New York Tribune. 
bring,” was the usual reply, and that set me to 
wondering what sort of a state government there 
must be to permit the sale or offering for sale of 
wormy food. 
What if the manufacturers of breakfast foods, 
the packers of canned goods, the sellers of dried 
fruits or the handlers of meat products were to 
offer to consumers in the State of Iowa a lot of 
wormy products? Such products would be con¬ 
demned out of hand, their purveyors would be 
denounced by press, pulpit and politicians, and 
Fort Madison would gain in population if the 
practice were not stopped immediately. Yet 
wormy apples appear on the market year after 
year because of “what they will bring.” Perhaps 
a small worm in a home-grown apple is an 
insignificant thing to make a fuss about, but most 
people like to consider themselves strict vege¬ 
tarians while they are eating apples. At any 
rate, I never heard anybody claim that a worm 
made an apple taste any better, and I do know 
that the presence of any wormy fruit in a market 
makes the sale of all fruits more difficult and less 
profitable. 
Iowa and the other States in which your publi¬ 
cations flourish can produce as good apples on the 
average as can be grown anywhere, but the trees 
must have reasonable care and the fruit must be 
reasonably sorted and attractively packed to 
compete with the specialized products from else¬ 
where. Your farmers are encouraged to go to 
extremes in procuring and maintaining first-class 
dairy herds, fine poultry stocks, good seed, and 
right fertilizers and the proper machinery and 
equipment with which to make the most of their 
farming. We don’t find little worms that cause 
all the mischief in the bacon or “side meat” any 
more, but we are likely to commit mayhem on a 
lively little boarder if we undertake to eat a 
home-grown apple without our glasses on. 
Why not start a crusade for better apples on 
the farm? It wouldn’t do the farmer any harm. 
If it did nothing more than insure a 
plentiful supply of good fruit for his 
family’s use during the winter, it 
would work a great good. Farmers 
need apples as well as city folks do. 
Apples are good food for everybody, 
but they must be good, sound, whole¬ 
some and free from insects to make 
them worth much to anybody. Why 
not interest the State Legislatures in 
the passage of laws against the sale of 
wormy fruit? I know they would 
hesitate on the theory that to pro¬ 
hibit the farmer from marketing his 
wormy apples would work a hardship 
on him, but anybody can see that he is 
working the greatest hardship on him¬ 
self by following his present methods. 
Where he loses money on his orchards 
now, he could make money if he 
properly pruned, sprayed, cultivated 
and tended his trees. 
Perhaps you wonder why I, inter¬ 
ested in the sale of specialized pro¬ 
ducts, can consistently take this 
position. Perhaps it would appear 
that the best interests of those who 
are with me in trying to stimulate 
markets for perishable food products 
generally would be served by permit¬ 
ting the farmer to cut his own throat 
in the matter of apple production. 
But the fact is that a few poor apples 
hurt any market. The jobbing trade 
confines its operations largely to the 
boxed apple and the better grades and 
known qualities of barreled stock, 
because they realize that only sound 
fruit will satisfy the retailer and again 
satisfy the consumer. But the same 
retailer, who will complain bitterly to 
a jobber when his stock is not up to 
par, will often buy a load of very 
inferior fruit from a passing farmer on 
the theory that he is buying a chance at an 
extremely long profit. 
This long profit doesn’t come, however, as the 
retailer’s first act is to offer the wormy or other¬ 
wise inferior stock to the public at prices for 
which he could and should be selling the highest 
grade fruit on the market. There are two results: 
First, the customer is dissatisfied and ceases 
buying apples for a time. Second, the retailer’s 
sales are slow because of a high price on an 
inferior article, and he loses through deterioration 
of the stock left on his hands. The farmer may 
have secured a small advance when he sold to the 
retailer—or even through a wholesale dealer—but 
both he and the retailer and the consumer lose in 
the long run. 
During the Fall months, when the apple trade 
should be at its best, we frequently find stagna¬ 
tion because “there is so much home-grown junk 
on the market.” “Junk” is the word they use, or 
another and uglier word, and it describes much of 
the fruit that is offered as the best local produc¬ 
tion. The farming industry is not doing itself any 
good by keeping down its standards on this one 
branch of its activity while all concerned are 
trying to improve standards in other directions. 
(Continued on page 276) 
