The daily sentinel., 1910-07-14

! Evening Post II is from the pen Of
| VIII Payne, who has been running a
series of articles in the magazine on
cooperation. In the present article
he deals with our fruitgTowers organ
izations. our system /f marketing
farm and orchard products and de-
votes considerable space to the CO.
operative retail store system which
is getting quite a foothold in this part
of the state. Many of Photographer
Deans fine photos illustrate the
article.
\ portion of the article is here
with reproduced.
Says NlT Payne:
In the valley of the Grand river,
in Colorado, about midway between
Denver and Salt Lake, there is now a
fine deciduous fruit region some
twenty-five miles long and from three
to ten miles wide. with planted area
of about twenty thousand acres-a
blossoming handbreadth on the slopes
of the Rockies.
"As late as the eighties Indians oc-
cupied the valley and there seemed
no particular reason for begrudging
them possession of it. There was
nothing here, says a fruit grower
but a desolate waste of light-colored,
nsignificant-looking soil that many
prospective settler passed up at
fifteen TO twenty dollars an acre.
Water was there, however-Grand
junction, the metropolis of the valley
standing at the confluence of the
Grand and GunnlsUn rivers.
In the eighties a few fruit trees
were planted, and, as those trees be-
gan to bear, men with an eye for
such matters could see plainly enough
that the bare valley, with its light
colored soil, contained the making of
a remarkable fruit district. Indeed,
fifty dollars has been picked from a
single tree there. a thousand dollars
from one acre; and last year the val
ley shipped out more than two mil
lion dollars worth of fruit.
The Grand valley orchardist,
however, had an unusual proposition
to deal with. Directly east of him
lay the formidable and sparsely pop
ulated barrier of the Rockies. To the
west was a great stretch of scantily
peopled and more or less barren
plains. Moreover, the sorts of fruit
that he could raise most successfully
} required no special conditions of eli
mate.
Apples, for example, are decidedly
>
valley, and, broadly speaking, they
grow apples everywhere. The prob
lem was how to induce an Eastern
or Southern man to buy apples in
western Colorado, and pay the
freight when he could buy them next
door Obviously, as "A rule, this could
hardly be done by selling him apples
cheaper than he could get them next
door. Freight charges alone would
often prevent that: but it might be
done by selling him better apples
About the only way the Grand valley
E grower could hope to succeed on a
large scale, in short, was by making
I himself a'sort of orchardist de luxe.
Success in Spite of Mistakes.
I That he has succeeded on a large
l scale is partly due of course, to soil
and climate, but it is also due to the
. Grand Junction Fruit Growers asso-
citation. At first, as usual, the mar
keting problem was simple, for when
the output of the valley was small
, points comparatively near by took
. the fruit readily at fair prices. As
soon as the output exceeded the most
. obvious demands, trouble began. In
e 1891, handful of growers met and
2 organized the Grand Junction asso.
e citation for cooperative marketing.
" We organized with seven direc-
| tors and an authorized capital OF
= twenty thousand dollars, says A. b
d Hoyt one of the original incorpora-
: tors At that time these seven di,
: rectors represented the bulk of the
fruit shipped out of the county Each
: director took from five to ten shares
of stock, paying down half the par
value and agreeing 10 pay the other
= hu1 At ha Of -
of them had to borrow the money to
make the first payment Fruit grow
ing didn't look like very good thing
then. Practically everything was
shipped by express. and the charges
were high. We had no experience in
picking and packing. Everybody
used his own Judgment; so'there was
no uniformity, and we had no inspec-
tion system. We were without com
I mercial standing ana could not hnv
: supplies except on a guaranty from
t our local bank.
On this matter of supplies. how
ever. we were successful from the
+ start, saving money by cooperative
buying. In other respects we made a
good many mistakes the first few
years, but we held on and fought it
out, believing we had the right idea
i and learning a good deal even from
e our mistakes.
For several years the success of
' the association was very small The
: greatest of its mistakes is described
5 by Mr. Hoyt as follows: AT first we
elected new manager every year
in other words. sort of passed the
: honor around. This gave us green
man for each years business, and
the result was rather disastrous In
1897 we elected John F. Moore and
he has been manager ever since,
growing up with the business. From
t that time our real success dates. I'm
t der Mr.. Moore's able continuous man
agement the association has expand
ed steadily and fruit growing in the
! valley has expanded with it