The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-18
AN ABSURD SITUATION.

A friend of the CALL has furnished 1t
with the following instructive narration:
Not long ago, while on visit to one of
the minor cities of an Atlantic State, he
entered large store which was kept by
friend of his. In the store he saw number
of tubs bearing the label California April
COTS" and the proprietor informed him
that he prepared the article himself by
stewing dried apricots received from Cali
fornia and packing the compound in the
form of sort of marmalade, in tubs, and
that he sold the tubs in large numbers to
smaller dealers. The price which he re-
ceived from the retail merchants was
twice the cost of the dried apricots, and
the retail merchants sold the product at a
considerable additional advance. The de-
mand for the article was great and was
rapidly increasing, as the consumers found
it delicious.
1t is evident that in the production Of
this article the enterprising manufacturer
by the necessary addition of water and
some sugar at least doubled the weight of
the dried apricots, and that as he charged
for this compound twice as much as he
paid for the dried article, he received four
times the original cost to him, charging as
much for the water which he had added as
for the fruit itself, and it can hardly be
supposed that the cost of manufacture was
sufficient to Offset the price which he re-
ceived for the water. He certainly is de-
serving of all praise for his ingenuity and
enterprise, but it is something of pity
that the California grower himself had not
possessed the acumen to forestall him.
ha CIT 10 1,,di ic hQr U
more SO, however, than the common
knowledge that the delicious apricot mar
malade made by Crosse & Blackwell of Lon
don, and consumed with so much gusto
by the epicures of San Francisco, is made
exactly after the fashion of the New Eng
land grocer, though possibly with a little
more skill-that is to say, Crosse d Black
well buy aprieots grown and dried in Cali
fornia, pay the charges of transporting
them 5000 miles to London, manufacture
them into marmalade and ship this con-
feet 5000 miles back to San Francisco,
where in buying it we pay the transporta-
ton charge of L, 900 miles on the fruit and
5000 miles on the water and the glass or
stone packages, besides a comfortable
profit to the manufacturers and to various
dealers through whose hands the product
has passed.
The absurdity of all this is both pitiful
and disgraceful. The apricot grows in very
few places in the world. 1t is nearer like
the banana than any other fruit in deli
cacy of flavor and richness of nutritive
elements If California grew nothing but
apricots it would still be the most fortu-
nate section of the Union, for this is the
rarest and most valuable of all the fruits
grown outside of the tropics Seemingly
it is only Californians who do not realize
how valuable it is.
If the freight charges on apricot MARINA
lade from California to the Atlantic sea-
board are too heavy to permit of the profit
able manufacture of the article here, it is
difficult to see why dried apricots should
not be shipped East and there made into
marmalade by agents of the California
growers, or union of sufficient number
of growers to establish factory on q large
scale.
Marmalade, however, is not the only OF
even the best, though the daintiest form
in which dried apricots may be prepared
for table use, for marmalade is confec-
ton, whereas the apricot is not only deli
cious fruit but is a nutritious food as well.
In this last regard it stands practically
alone among the fruits produced in the
| United States. This gives it special value
which probably not an Eastern consumer
in hundred thousand understands. The
work of educating the people of the East
in this regard is one that might be under
taken by Californians with great profit to
| themselves.