The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-04-05
FRUIT MARKETING AND
THE COOPERATIVE SYSTEM
Practical Addresses on New Problems of Hawaii
Delivered at the Meeting of the Farmers
Institute, Saturday Night.


ing Office expense, box, packing paper,
labels and car-loading). Here the as
ISOLATION stops. This cost runs from
25e. to 27c. to 30c. to Soc, according
to each mana cement S ideas of needs
of expenses, etc. A careful pack costs
more than a careless one. First-elass
machinery assists a good pack and may
reduce cost of pack without injury to
quality and SO reputation of fruit All
expenses after the association are in
Guided in the per box cost of selling.
Individually a grower is not known in
the central or local exchange. Ny
recollection permits me to say that our
selling expenses, which include all sal
aries after the association, will not
amount to ten cents, excepting auction
commissions of 2 per cent. or 3 per
cent, where we sell by auction.'
Mr. J. E. Higgins, Horticulturist of
the Hawaii Experiment Station, was the
next speaker. His talk dealt with the
conditions that the Hawaiian fruit
grower has to face on the mainland and
the ways in which he has to go about
getting his product on to the market.
Mr.. Byron o. Clark emphasized Mr..
Childs' statement that the whole mat
ter hinged on transportation. He fur
Their showed that the Hawaiian grower
is at an added disadvantage in that
he has to compete with the Mexican
and Bermuda fruit men, who can put
their pineapples in. American markets
at duty of seven cents per cubic foot,
or 81 per ton, while the man in Hawaii
has to let many ships 60 away empty
% %la L.
could use foreign bottoms he would be
glad to pay tax equal to the duty,
but as it now is shipments on these
steamers can only be made by the pay
ment Of 5000 penalty.
DR.. E. V. Wilcox followed with the
main address of the evening. DR.. Viii
cox said in part: Some form of coop
GRAFTON is essential in marketing our
Hawaiian crops. Cooperation is the
fundamental idea of civilization. Bust
ness is still too much conducted on the
cutthroat order, but it is being real
lied that that side must give way to
cooperative endeavor. In cooperation
halfway measures are often worse than
none at all. Organizations to determine
price are not feasible. Price is a func-
tfon OF the law of supply and demand,
but when one side is organized and the
other is not this law, can not operate.
This DR.. Wilcox showed with startling
eItarness by the example of the egg
business in the Middle West. The great
packing house companies buy eggs in
the spring when they are to be had in
plenty alto or IL cents a dozen, hold
them in cold storage and then in the
fall and winter sell them, often back
to the farmers themselves, at 80 cents
or more. Without organization the
farmers are powerless and the law of
supply and demand is thwarted. But
this can be remedied by organization.
It does not necessarily need great men
tai ability or capital. The essentials
are the willingness to pool issues and
to hang together in a fraternal way
for two or three years until a market
is established. When negro women in
the Black Belt of Alabama can organ
ize and cooperate in selling eggs, as
they have done and are doing, it would
seem that if they really desired it the
fruitgrowers of Hawaii could get to-
gether on a working basis.
In Hawaii transportation is, of course,
the chief difficulty. But so far at
tempts to arrange freight rates and get
ships have been largely the work of in
dividuals. If the growers of the Terri
tory would really organize in an effec-
tive way, the story would be different.
The product here IS of value Some one
is going to profit by it. Why should
not Ii be the producers themselves
through an organization in which not
only the pineapple men take part but
Oh z
and other fruits? Such an association
would, before long, be running its own
steamers on a regular schedule. The
main and essential feature is that all
must get together and stay together
Mr.. Byron O. Clark suggested that
the experiment station might well take
the lead in this movement, when DR..
Wilcox made the statement given
above.
The regular meeting of the Institute
was followed by a business session, at
which the subject of the reorganization
of the Farmers Institute, perhaps with
a change of name, came up for active
discussion. Messrs. Weinrich, Pope, Hos
mer, Wilcox, Higgins, Clark, Gilmore,
and Pond all had things to say and
suggestions to offer. 1t appeared to
be the sense of the meeting that while
there were now few real farmers in
Hawaii in the true American meaning
of that term, there was, nevertheless,
plenty of room for such an organization
as the Farmers Institute, were it right
~ carried on. The farmer of Hawaii
is business man. An organization to
appeal to him must have something of
genuine merit to offer, but there is OPP
portunity in connection with the ex
tension work of the College of Hawaii
for Just such work as the Institute can
do while at the same time the interests
of the actual small farmer can also be
looked out for.
1t was. finally left that committee
of five should be appointed by the chair
to report on plan for the reorganiza-
. ton of the Institute along these lines.
Prof Pope named as this committee
Messrs. r. S. Hosmer, chairman; Dr. E.
Y. Wilcox, President j. w. Gilmore,
B. O. Clark, and Percy NJ Pond
If future meetings arouse as much
interest among those present as did
this one. the Farmers Institute is far
from being dead