The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1915-02-04

Rome Beauties, GsnOs and Winesaps'
10 the Boston Store in Chicago. he
received 20 cents a box on track. Ihefe
vas q charge Of Sl9 per car Tor dehot'
rage. You can figure for yoursell, 81
ter this demurTage and freight was
taken out. the apples netted the grower
about nine cents per box.
"In another instance / iouhd Nv tNo
carloads of apples at Green Bay WIS,
on the tracks. The grower was trylhg
10 sell them 10 all buyers. But they
had quickly gotten together. and when
thew refused the prices he asked ne
nut them infdry storage and IN dahgef
of loss by freezing. visited the traue,
but thew told me that they did not want
fruit al my price, since they had Two
ears in their town already that they
exnected 10 get for So cents per bOA.
You NAV be sure that ! concluded 10
hunt other fields. No.
r-"Dealers as a rule fIown on this
class of business, and they handle IL lh
the way they do TO discourage u ; tof II
demoralizes their business. talked
with a number Of the growers who
tried TO sell their own apples this year,
and do not think they will ever try IL
again. ,u
~ found in my experiences that the
towns that had never handled box ffult
were among the most liberal buyers,
after they had discovered the qualities
of the northwestern product. .
"Along with the heavy crop one OF
The big reasons for poor prices thls
wear was the heavy business done IN
bulk apples amounting to some 5O,UOO
or 60. 900 carloads that were sold all
over the middle west. The weather IN
October and November was mild and
this fruit moved rapidly at for 40 to 70
cents per hundred pounds. Had the
usual freezes in the fall Of the year
prevailed this competition would have
been eliminated Such condition may
not prevail again in years.
"Hood River has been particularly
fortunate in the disposition her apples
this year, all fruit having been sold for
the most part, except some Newt0wns,
while hundreds Of thousand Of boxes OF
other northwestern apples remain in
storage. And Hood Rivers price have
been more than 10 cents per box higher
than that Of other district. The dis
trict has been fortunate in having Will
mer Sieg 10 handle the fruit. When
Mr.. Sieg first came here ] did not par
ticularly take to him. But my four
months experience in the middle west
ern markets have pointed out to me
the benefits that he has brought to
Hood River ! belive that great bulk
of our crop has been disposed of ad-
vantageously, on account Of this broad
acquaintance and friendship among the
market men. When | would strike
town ! would always find that they
knew him and were friendly to.hm,
and this thing helped me more than
else TO make my sales.
Mr.. Vanderbilt was present at the
Seattle meeting and declares that he is
for harmony.
Lots of the growers, he says,
"had got the idea that by the forma-
tion of the big central selling concerns
we had reached the ultimate ends. No
agency is perfect, and we must stop
the holes as we find them. The organ
iZatons evolved in 1918 have been of
benefit to the grower for If we had
last year such conditions as were prev
alent in 1912, great many apples
would never have left the orchards at
all.
"But while we are talking harmony,
why not try to get together here at
Hood River and go to the front in
solid organization. We have got to do
this very thing sooner or later, or all
of us are going broke. There is no use
Of Hood River growers going into the
eastern markets and competing against
each other. Local petty jealousies
cause the most of our strife. We can
not all be beIlwethers. When Hood
River presents solid front then we
can have the recognition that we de
serve. "