The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1921-12-08
RESUME OF 1921
APPLE MARKETING

The following is portion of an ar
ticle recently written by W. F. Gwin,
of the Northwestern Fruit Exchange,
for the Seattle Business Chronicle:
Northwestern boxed apples find their
way into consumption to an over
whelming extent via the route of the
fruit stand. Their principal consumer
is the man in the street. To very
great extent they are eaten out of
hand; only to a minor extent are they
sold from grocery stores and used for
general household or culinary purposes.
Therefore. the demand for them is
acutely affected by unfavorable condi-
tions in the great manufacturing in
dustries, as the best consumers of
Northwestern apples are the highly
paid mechanic classes. 1t is not the
residents of Riverside Drive in New
York that are the best consmers of
fancy fruit. whether boxed apples,
oranges or grapefruit, but rather the
residents of the Bowery and the East
Side it is not the gilded restaurants
and hotels of Broadway and Fifth ave-
nue. that consume the greatest quanti-
ties of these fruits, but popular prices
like Childs and Thompsons.
Before and examiner of the Inter
state Commerce Commission in Yaki-
ma last winter testimony was taken
from a large number Of competent wit
nesses as TO the total cost on board
cars Of the apple crop of the season
1920. One of the most competent of
these witnesses testified that it had
cost S2.28 per box toIproduce the 1920
crop and deliver it on board cars.
Others gave figures, some higher.and
some slightly lower, but it is safe to
say that the average producing cost
last year was perhaps somewhere be-
tween 81 and 81 %. What the actual
cost will prove to be this year is yet
undetermined but il should not exceed
so per cent of last years cost.
Ii was apparent long before the crop
was ready to harvest that the market
ing of the 1921 crop would be charac.
terized by a marked absence of specn-
lative OF storage activity. Up TO this
year il has been estimated that from
IS per cent 10 So per cent Of the entire
commercial crop Of the Pacific North
west found its way into cold storage at
terminal or transit points either for a
long OF a short term.
storage operations by the trade on the
usual scale. The situation was unset
tied, commodity prices were exceed
ingly uneven. and the value Of every
kind Of commodity subject TO unusual
fuctuati0n. Hence il was manifestly
necessary that unusual preparations be
made by the producers and their sales
agencies 20 effect an even wider and
thinner distribution of this large crop
over the markets Of the world than
had ever been achieved IN previous
wears. IL is one thing to have train
loads Of suplesiarrive in the big CEN
ters sold and destined for cold storage
and quite another thing to have similar
OF even greater quantities las this
year, arrive on those same markets
unsold and at the mercy Of the open
market This year. then. the value Of
strong growers organizations and
marketing agencies has been demon /
strsted and emphasized in a very much /
stronger. more impressive manner l
than ever before. especially during the
years II the war and the period fol- F.
lowing the Armistice when speculation /
IN all commodities was rife and almost /
any quantity Of any merchsntable con- |
modify found more buyers than sellers