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American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man."-Washington 
Keg. U. S. Pat. Off. 
Established 1842 
Volume 113 
For the Week Ending February 23, 1924 
Number 8 
The Problem of Eden Today 
An A. A. Wednesday Evening Radio Talk Broadcast From WEAF 
S INCE the days of the Garden of Eden, 
the price of apples has been the subject 
of much dispute. What a terrific price 
Adam paid, and how little did Eve get 
for that famous apple! 
By N. R. PEET 
moves and the grower gets a fairly good price for 
his fruit. 
But confidence is such a fickle thing. So many 
OT .. f i 1OT • + i , n i , . things may cause it to be lost. A premonition 
another is that confidence plays such an important that the crop is larger than estimated; the fear of 
Dart in establishing the value Tt meat ho ramom. on ^~ —1__ i 1 i 
General Manager, Western New York Fruit Growers 
Cooperative Packing Association, Inc. 
' r f paying a terrific price for apples. If bered that the apple-dealers and speculators in the trade at destination mav have lost recent] v 
of Y e „" d k S £££ t aPpk -^ S producing territory are interested in the crop only on some other perishable; discouraging gossip 
about some other fruit which will 
be on the market at the same time. 
The trade is exceedingly sensitive 
to these things, and it is only right 
that it should be. 
But the unfortunate feature of it 
is this: that, if this loss of confi¬ 
dence comes at that time of the 
year just preceding the harvest of 
any perishable crop when normally 
the crop should be changing from 
the growers’ hands to the dealers 
and speculators, then the grower is 
left without his usual market. 
The only thing left for him is to 
ship his own fruit on consignment. 
This is anything but orderly mar¬ 
keting. Under such . conditions 
the buyers at destination lose their 
confidence. They lose interest and 
turn their attention to other pro¬ 
duce. Prices become most un¬ 
stable. Every wholesaler and 
retailer who buys faces an increased 
risk of loss due to the possibility 
of his competitors buying much 
cheaper than he has bought. For 
of Western New York happen to 
be listening in, they also will agree 
that they are getting far too little 
for that same fruit. 
It is recorded that Adam blamed 
Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent. 
In the controversy which still 
continues, the consumer blames 
the producer and the producer is 
apt to blame everybody in general 
and the railroads and middlemen 
in particular. 
It is not my purpose to-night to 
blame anyone, but rather to call 
your attention to the reasons for 
this spread. Perhaps w r e can find 
some means for bettering the 
condition. No doubt it will amaze 
some of you who are consumers 
when I say that the growers in 
Western New York would be very 
happy if they could get every year 
only two and a half to three cents 
a pound for their good apples. It 
mayjbe news to some of the growers 
that you consumers are in the 
habit of paying at least eight to 
twelve cents a pound for these 
Do You Like What the Air Brings You? 
T HE article on this page was broadcast by Mr. N. R. Peet, General 
Manager of the Western New York Fruit Growers Cooperative 
Packing Association from station W^EAF on Wednesday evening, 
February 20. Mr. Peet’s discussion applies to the consumer in the 
city as well as the fruit grower in the country and should prove equally 
interesting to each group. If you would like more talks of this kind, 
write us. 
Every Wednesday evening at 7:50, AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
through the cooperation of station WEAF puts on a radio talk that is 
designed to be of interest to the man on the land as well as the city 
dweller. The problem that we are facing is: Do the people in the country 
get these talks over the air and do they want more of them. The 
only way we can tell is by having those folks who hear these talks, 
write in and tell us. City folks respond extremely well. There is 
not an AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST program that doesn’t bring re¬ 
sponse from our city listeners. We would like to hear more from the 
country. Let us know whether you get the story clear or not and let us 
know what kind of talks you are most interested in.— The EDITORS 
Tj * * . - same a PP les * fa; the money which they hope to make out of it. this reason, it is imperative that he figurf a higheJ 
But as a matter of fact, many growers are not The wholesalers, jobbers and retailers at destina- percentage of profit on what he does buv This is 
totting anything for their fruit and many con- tion have the same interest. When all of these one reason why the consumer pays just as much 
sumers cannot get good Western New York elements of the trade have confidence that the for apples each year. P 7 3 
aP §i!L a r/fV pnce ' a • • 4 1 • .1? • cr ? p I s f ? in ? , to show them a P rofit ’ then the y a11 There is another reason. When the experienced 
to LTThe InSS W, ° f SerV1C6S take h ° W Wlth energy and enthusiasm - The cr °P channels of trade in the production area lose con- 
necessary to get the apples from 
the orchard to the consumer’s 
home. It is a fact that these costs 
run about five cents a pound even 
under the most favorable circum- 
I stances and without anyone taking 
an excessive profit. Much time 
and effort has been spent in the 
past trying to reduce the costs, but 
without much success. Let us take 
it for granted that they are neces¬ 
sary evils. # 
It would seem then that in those 
years when the grower gets little 
or nothing for his fruit, that the 
consumer should be able to buy at 
around five cents a pound for good 
apples. And in those good years 
when the grower gets two or three 
cents a pound, the consumer should 
pay seven or eight cents a pound. 
But this is not the case; the con¬ 
sumer is paying about the same 
price for apples each year whether 
the grower gets anything or not. 
Why should this be? One reason 
why there is such a wide variation 
in the price which the grower re¬ 
ceives one year as compared with 
This picture shows barreled apples from Western New York stored on sidewalks in the 
thickly populated and congested districts on the East Side of New York City. The 
fruit growers’ problem is to get his produce to this class of consumer at a reasonable price 
and still get a good return for his apples. Another problem the grower has to face is 
to get his apples on the market in an orderly manner to avoid market gluts and accom¬ 
panying low prices. 
fidence in the deal and do not func¬ 
tion, it is probably true that the 
standard of the pack is let down. 
Whether this is true or not, the 
trade at destination is afraid that 
it probably will be true. It is 
reasonable for him to expect that 
there will very probably be a lot of 
false moves, unwise delays, suffi¬ 
cient at least so that he may expect 
a larger proportion of the fruit to 
be out of condition. 
We must not forget that this 
below-grade or off-condition fruit 
is not only a waste, it is ajso a 
loss; retailer paid as much for it as 
for the good fruit in the same 
package. The only way he can 
make up the loss is to charge twice 
as much for the same number of 
good apples as there are poor ones. 
It is to cover these two risks, the 
fear of being undersold and the 
fear of loss due to condition or 
quality, that it is necessary for the 
retailer to ask the consumer just 
as much for apples every year. 
Probably no one is to blame for 
(Continued on page 200) 
