The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1914-01-22
EDUCATE PEOPLE
TO EAT APPLES
From the Minneapolis Commercial
West)

From the Minneapolis Commercial
WesD
/ we'll remember the first banana |
ever tasted. Cousin brought it from
Florida in his trunk. Mother gave me
a slice. 1t had feeling like slippery
elm and taste like tan bark. We
thought the southern people must have
strange tastes. No merchants sold ban
anas in our part of the country in those
days. In more recent years | have
been in many of the out-of-the- way
places OF America, yet rarely have
seen a spot where the grocer did not
have at least the remains of bunch of
bananas about his premises. The
banana is as staple over this wide
America as is plug tobacco and rolled
oats. Pershable in the extreme
though it is, some power has planned
and some power maintains system
whereby it can be placed in edible
form and at reasonable cost close to
the hand and directly before the eye of
the man with All appetite in his throat
and nickel in his purse. AS result
the American has acquired fixed ban
ana-for- breakfast habit
How the Banana Trust stole the
American appetite right out from un-
der the nose of the home fruit grower
is an interesting story; and doubIy in
teresting. because the holding of the
stolen goods is still greater and more
strenuous game than the stealing.
That fruit that freezes at So degrees
and cooks at 70 can be brought safely
all the way from Central America and
laid down tor rs cents dozen in Rat |
tlesnake Canyon. Mont, and all inter-
mediate points, is the nearest thing to |
q miracle in the whole story of human
fodder. We have probably all read the |
story, wondered at it and forgotten
most of the details. But we have not
forgotten to buy the banana. That is
the point the banana trust would not |
let US forget. This is their ambition
To have always at hand and near the
eye a convenient package of their pro.
duct, so cheap that nickel will buy |
some OF it, so conveniently near that it |
is no trouble any day in the year to
get it, and SO good that we will come
again. Given this as the desired re-
suit, they overcame all difficulties in
the path thereto. The accomplish
ment was not miracle 1t was Just |
good clever business.
AS a banana antidote, what is the |
matter with the apple? 1t is raised |
here at home. 1t can be sent to any |
point where human foot has trodden
upon banana peel, and some farther. |
1t costs less to send. And vet YOU can |
buy bananas where you can't get a2-
Piles. And possibly you eat more ban
anas than you do apples. Moreover,
you know that apples are a better food
and can be used in more appetizing
variety of forms than can bananas. |
Still, you have the banana for break
fast instead of the apple. The reason
FOR this fact suggests itself. If you
could have bright. crisp, pleasant fla
yored apples-every one good from
skin to core-at a reasonable price all |
the year round placed easily within
reach of your hand, might not you eat
the apple for beakfast? Ten apples
could be pleasurably and eprofitably'l
eaten where one is now. And they
will, when this thing happens, namely:
The establishment OF q centralized au.
thority, properly financed, that will
compel the standardization of apples
that will put them up in packages of
tempting size and form; study the
markets and ship only the require
ments; care for their stocks en- route
and in storage as vigilantly as the ban
ana nen do theirs; maintain a steady
bus reasonable sale price; then put
that apple everlastingly SO temptingly
near the consumers nose that he will
simply tumble to it and eat it in self
defense. Such an apple day is coming.