The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1910-10-20
SHORTAGE OF
BOXES AND CARS
HOOD RIVERS TOP LONDON MARKET
Warehouses Are Blcched - Printed Paper
Short All Blame Placed on
Big Crop.

During the past few days with
weather which could hardly be sur
passed for good apple harvest days,
the growers have been working hard to
get their immense crops packed out
and ready for shipment and the only
drawbacks are shortage of print wrap
paper and boxes caused principally by
underestimation of the crop and a
shortage of cars.
The car shortage seems to be nothing
serious and Manager c. H. Sproat
of the Apple Growers Union hopes
to have more cars right away. He is
trying to get refrigerator cars from
the Northern Pacific. The growers are
about to put their corp into the ware
houses very rapidly and without cars
the shipping department cannot handle
the apples. On Tuesday Is, ll2 boxes
or about "a cars of apples were de-
liVered to the Union warehouses and
as the cars were not here to handle
them the growers had to hold up bring
ing in fruit on Wednesday.
Nearly all of the growers are find-
ing that their first orders for boxes
were not big enough and that they are
short. Some growers have had to
double their box orders. This is mainly
caused by the fact that the apples ran
bigger this year than usual, and it
has even developed that the Apple
Growers Union has sold apples of the
smaller sizes which it may not be able
to deliver merely because of Dame
Natures unexpected benevolence in
the way of an extraordinarily fine grow
ing season.
The printed wraps for the Apple
Growers Union were ordered six
months ago from The Glacier job de-
partment and since early in July a
steady run has been made on them.
1t was supposed there would be
enough but before the job was COM
pleted the growers were coming to this
Office for the wraps as fast as they
came off the press. The shortage was
in the larger size wraps again showing
that there were more apples of the
larger sizes than was expected. The
original order was finished Saturday
and the Union has now placed an ad-
ditional order which will keep the
press going "a hours day until
December l in order to make up the
shortage. In the mean time many
growers were forced to use the plain
wraps because the printed ones were
not to be had.
The weather and the fact that there
are plenty of packers to handle the
crop makes it easy forathe growers to
get their apples to the warehouse.
The crop is being handled rapidly and
if the present rate keeps up the
apples will all be packed in good time.
News from London is to the effect
that the first of this month Hood
River Gravensteins were at the top of
the market there. Many other Oregon
fruits were in the market and the fact
that they were of rather perishable
classes, being pears, prunes, and
plums as we'll as apples was unusual.
Henry B. Miller, United States
Consul at Belfast, writes to the Ore
gonian under date of October as
follows:
"On October ! find in the markets
of Ireland and Great Britain Craven
stein apples from California and Ore
gon, selling at the commission houses
at SO per 5O-pound box. also find
California Yellow Newtown Pippins in
the market at this early date. | find
also large quantiaties7 of Beurre Hardy
pears from California in 20 pound
boxes, selling at 81 per box.
IL find also small quantities of Goes
Golden Drop plums and the Italian
prune from Idaho, in fact, all of the
fruit from the United States seemed to
be in very good condition with the ex-
ception of the California Yellow New
town apple. The Oregon Gravensteins,
from Hood River, are bringing the
highest price of any of the apples in
this market at this time of the year.
at was something of surprise to
me, as no doubt it will be to many of
the fruit growers of the Northwest, to
find these varieties of our fruits in the
English smarket so early in the season.
1t all goes to prove the splendid
possibilities of the European market
for the fruits of the Pacific Coast on
the completion of the Panama Canal,
when every variety, even our delicate
fruits, can be shipped direct to Europ-
can markets on refrigerator steamers
at much less rate than they are
now being carried across the con
tippnt -