The daily sentinel., 1913-02-21
OWNERS OF BOX
APPLES FACING
SURE DISASTER
Movement of Fruit Too
Slow and Those Who
SoldEarly SavedLots
Of Money.
, Sentinel Special Service.

Boston, Mass, Feb. 2l.-Ap- z,
I, pie dealers. as well as growers. Z,
g are much encouraged over the g,
= estimated reduction of both &.
u common and cold storage since g
z January l. The export move Z,
= ment to February | was about e
:, the same as last year for that z,
= round numbers. The domestic g,
= consumption of apples during &,
:, January was nearly 10000 bar &,
3 rels per day, or about 100000 &,
= barrels for the month. On Feb Z,
= ruary /, 1912. there were &,
!, around 100000 barrels in g,
& storage against 100000 on q
:, Feb. /, 1913. Thus the country 8,
. had on February /. only about =
&, 100000 barrels more than Z,
6, year ago. This included both &,
:, barrel and boxed fruit !,
6, {, g, q g 2 gsSs,G =
Reports from various sources show
that through the east the active CO.
operation of the Housewives League
and other women's clubs have assist
ed materially in stimulating the con-
sumptive demand for barreled fruit
since there were over 100000 bar
rels moved out of storage during
January. The sale of boxed fruit was
900, 900 boxes. This brings the east
ern storage situation to a fairly heal
thy position since there were only
I 100000 barrels more in storage Feb
ruary ] than a year ago.
The box apple situation today ap-
pears to no; only be critical but most
discouraging, since the country has
not been taking over $4,000 boxes a
/ day during January. including all
that has gone abroad. There were
about 100000 boxes held on Febru-
/ airy /, or 100000 more than last
year at the same time. This means
that the box apple people are not
only in deep trouble, but have plen-
/ ty OF grief ahead of them. On New
Years day there were 6,250,000 box
es in storage and the trade has moy-
ed only 100000 during, the past
month. This movement is entirely
too slow-only equals 10000 barrels
a day. With less than 1876 days at
the best to clean up the holdings,
this means that the owners of west
ern boxed fruit must go direct to the
consumer at once with an extensive
advertising campaign or else lose n
large part of their holdings Moth
Ing less than whirlwind advertising
Ndh oaNt hhtln tNtH part Oh tnelf
I Investment. IL would take a move
ment of fully 100000 boxes per
month to clean up this supply. The
present movement is less than ,O0O,-
600 per month. Even il barreled
goods were entirely out of the way.
which isenot the case, since there
are 100000 barrels equal to TO-
100000 boxes, yet 10 go into con
sumption, the western box apple men
have 5,25O,000 boxes of their own
fancy goods to place. Can they do 1t
even by putting prices under cost of
production?
Owners of common storage fruit
in the east and middle west were fair
ly successful in cutting down their
II stocks. New York state storers moved
about so per cent of their holdings.
Owners of fancy fruit in cold storage
did not put out over / 5 per cent,
preferring to take their chances on
February and March markets.
The apple men are not yet out of
the woods by any means. What lit
tie has been accomplished this thus
FAR by the cooperation of the wom-
ems clubs and limited amount of
advertising in certain sections by in
dividuals has made but small i'm
preston upon the supply. Close OBJ
servers realize that 1t will take sew
eral tons of publicity dynamite" to
get any appreciable amount of fruit
into consumption during the next
few weeks. There are not more than
about 10 weeks to move the whole
supply, and the present situation
means 100000 barrels per week must
go out, a little less than 100, 900 a
day, allowing for holidays and Sun
days. -Four weeks of national ad-
vertsing. using the daily press every
day would stimulate sales for the
last six weeks, so that the average of
prices for the last period would cover
any losses from lower prices during
the first half of the campaign. Any
thing less would be ineffective and
not worth trying out