American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
“Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of. Man ”—Washington 
% 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Established 1842 
Volume 112 \ For the Week Ending November 3, 1923 Number 18 
Marketing Fruit Is a Grower’s Problem 
We Grow the Fruit — Why Not Market It As Well ? 
I N spite of the enormous increase in fruit 
acreage and production in the great 
Northwest, especially in Oregon and 
Washington, and in the Southern Ap¬ 
palachians, notably in the Shenandoah Val¬ 
ley of the Virginias, New York still remains 
the empire fruit growing State. 
In 1922, New York produced and shipped 
29,993 cars of apples which was more than 
26 per cent of all United States commercial 
apple shipments, and nearly 45 per cent of 
all barreled apple shipments. In addition to 
this it shipped 6,862 cars of peaches, or 18 
per cent of the total ship¬ 
ments; 5,454 cars of pears, 
or nearly 27 per cent of the 
total shipments; and 863 cars 
of plums and prunes, or 17 
per cent of the total ship¬ 
ments of this fruit in the 
country as a whole. In other 
words, of 175,879 cars of 
these four fruits shipped in 
the United States in 1922, 
New York State alone shipped 
43,172 cars, or 24.5 per cent 
of the country’s total produc¬ 
tion. It is probable that 
nearly three-quarters of these 
enormous commercial ship¬ 
ments originated in eight or 
ten counties lying along the 
southern shore of Lake On¬ 
tario and around the Finger 
Lakes area to the south, as 
well as the counties of the 
Hudson Valley which are al¬ 
so a great factor in eastern 
fruit production. The im¬ 
portance of this area as a 
fruit growing region can 
hardly be over-estimated. Its crop more 
than that of any other single State in the 
Union influences markets and prices. 
New Yorkers Can Grow the Fruit 
New York is also one of the oldest and 
most stable fruit growing States in the 
Union. Many growers here have become 
very proficient in the production of fine qual¬ 
ity fruit. Clean cultivation nowadays 
usually with tractors, spraying with from 
ten to twelve thousand spray rigs by skillful 
and intelligent men, are the chief factors in 
the production of these great commercial 
crops. There is no more independent or 
substantial class of citizens than these New 
York growers, most of whom own their 
farms which usually pass from father to 
son, to be found anywhere in the United 
States. * ' 
Strangely enough when it comes to pack¬ 
ing and marketing of these enormous crops 
of fruit, the growers have in the main turned 
over their crops to speculative buyers, usual¬ 
ly operating through local dealers, to pack 
and market. While the grower has a great 
interest in price, he makes little or no effort 
to get it beyond dickering with various local 
representatives of the buyers. It would 
probably not be true to say that he is satis- 
By M. C. BURRITT 
fied with these arrangements, but he has 
certainly not been sufficiently dissatisfied 
with’ them, at least until very recently, to 
take any positive steps to improve them. 
This fact is of fundamental importance in 
any marketing program which is to remedy 
the situation. New York fruit notoriously 
lacks standardization. Even though New 
York has a reasonably good packing law, this 
law has not been very effective in improv¬ 
ing the grades of New York apples, in fact, 
many growers have declined to use it as 
since the law was passed, more and more 
growers have apparently preferred to sell 
their fruit to buyers “tree run,” turning 
over to the buyers the responsibility for 
grading and packing. It is hardly probable 
that any substantial improvement in market¬ 
ing methods can be looked for through the 
medium of the local dealer or the buyer be¬ 
cause their interests are primarily in the 
profits from their transaction. Their whole 
object is to buy from the growers as low 
as they can and sell to other buyers, specu¬ 
lators, jobbers and wholesalers as high as 
they can. They are not primarily interested 
in the improvement of the grade of the 
fruit or in the marketing system. It is 
futile to look to the present handlers of 
our fruits for the necessary improvement in 
the marketing situation. 
Up to Growers to Pack and Grade 
Packing and grading quality fruit under 
his own brand is the grower’s problem. The 
sooner he realizes this and takes hold of it 
vigorously, the sooner will the improvement 
come. The grower is vitally interested in 
improvement. He knows that the situation 
is bad. He wants it remedied. He is not 
clear and therefore not agreed as to the best 
way to do it. He must realize that improve¬ 
ment in fruit marketing methods lies with 
him and with him alone. His interest is in 
savings in the marketing process, in the 
elimination of wastefulness, and better dis¬ 
tribution of his product; in short, in a 
standardized, properly graded, sized, and 
branded product. The grower cannot ac¬ 
complish these ends except through coop¬ 
erative organization. 
This is the fundamental problem which 
must be solved before the marketing of New 
York State fruit can be greatly improved. 
The buyer must have con¬ 
fidence in what he is buying. 
He must be able to get it in 
quantity. He must be able to 
buy the grade and size that he 
wants when he wants it. In 
order to be sure of what he 
is buying and that he can con¬ 
tinue to get it, he naturally 
prefers to buy it under the 
guaranteed brand of reliable 
growers’ organizations. 
But standardization, grad¬ 
ing, sizing and branding costs 
money. It calls for an or¬ 
ganization with the necessary 
overhead to give an adequate 
inspection service for an in¬ 
vestment in grading and siz¬ 
ing machinery to insure a 
product which can be guaran¬ 
teed, for supervision, and for 
accounting with hundreds of 
comparatively small growers 
by whom fruit is produced. 
These essentials cannot be 
provided without volume. Un¬ 
less there is an adequate vol¬ 
ume, the costs of supplying these services 
are too high to warrant their provision, and 
there is too little of the product to make the 
. impression on the market necessary to offset 
the great volume of unstandardized stuff 
which is consigned to the market in com¬ 
petition with this high quality fruit. 
Cooperative Marketing Started Ten Years Ago 
All of the above facts have been recognized 
by many growers in western New York dur¬ 
ing the last decade, and steps have been 
taken to deal with the problem. It is ten 
years since the first cooperative marketing 
associations were organized in Niagara 
County. These were developed and brought 
together in a loose county association under 
the leadership of the Niagara County Farm 
Bureau and its manager, Nelson R. Peet, 
from 1914 to 1919. This experience and 
history has already been recorded in the 
American Agriculturist and need not be re¬ 
peated. For four years now a central or¬ 
ganization, known as the western New York 
Fruit Growers’ Cooperative Packing As¬ 
sociation, Inc., has been operating with 
headquarters at Rochester. For three years, 
or since 1921, this organization has been 
selling under definite contracts with its mem- 
(Continued on page 303) 
The chief purpose of cooperation, is orderly marketing to prevent market gluts. 
This picture was taken in front of Pier 17, North River, New York City. It is typi¬ 
cal of the way apples pile ujd on the Hudson River docks and at the railroad terminals 
