Al
Gardes
VOL.LXIX
INr/ A.APOUS, MAY 9, 1914
rf-V
NO. 19
?>y _____
Make the Of^hard Yield Large Profits
A man went into a grocery store, the
other day, to buy some apples. He
was shown two kinds. One grade was
in a barrel—itself unattractive—and
presentc-d big ones, small ones, various
colors, and many degrees of rottenness
for his examination. The other quality was packed in a box—clean and attractive. The apples in the box looked
exactly alike. There was no difference
in size or coloring, and every one was
clean and sound.
The apples In the barrel were grown
in Indiana, and the price was fifty cents
per bushel. Those in the box canve from
a western State.      Tlie grocer was selling    them    three  for    ten     <_______
cents or $2.50 per box.
The quality of the fruit
was not indicated by the
selling price. Comparison,
made at the time, disclosed
that the best apples in the
barrel were as well shaped,
bigger, and had as good if
not a better color than
those in the box. And the
flavor of the Indiana product was far superior to
that of the western apple.
The meat was more soliil,
tasted better, and was
jucier. It was the opinion
of half a dozen men that
our own home-grown fruit
was far better to eat than
that of the far-famed western valley.
The difference, then,
between the fifty cents per
bushel and the ?2.50 per
box cannot be accounted
for In quality of fruit.
The remaining two dollars
represents the profit the
western grower demands
for using good business
practice in the care of his
orchards, and the packing
and sale  of  his  fruit.
A good many apple growers in the middle west say
that they can never hope
to compete successfully
with  the  western  orchard- ~
ists. This is a mistaken idea. The fact
is they do, now, raise some apples that
are without superiors in this country.
They possess equally good land, when
compared with some of the western
states, an equally good climate, and far
better marketing facilities. They have
cheaper freight rates, more railroads,
interurbans, and are many times closer
to the centers of population. They
could put their fruit on the market at
a 25 per cent less price than the western grower, and still make more money
than he does.
The First Year With a Profitless Orchard.
The experience of Ed Mlntzer will be
enlightening. Mintzer lives and has a
twenty-five acre orchard in the middle
west, though the chances are he was
in Florida or California on his winter
vacation when this was written. He
grew up on a farm, and after he had
graduated from high school decided he
The Experience of One Man Who Made a Study
of Selling as Well as Raising Fruit.
By E. E. Troxell.
wanted to be a doctor, so he went to
Chicago University.
Un his father's Iowa farm was a ten
acre orchard. When he came home
one summer, a.ter he had been three
years In college and two years in medical school, he found the orchard loaded
with fruit. He knew that expenses
would be heavy the next year.    Mintzer
progre.sslve orchardist, the cause of it
all was that agreement with his father
to make his own expenses, for his flrst
summer's experience left him several
dollars in debt. He raised a bumper
crop of apples that flrst season. He
says it is the biggest year he has ever
had. Hard work in plenty, too, was
put in, and he found a sale for all his
A Busy Indiana Orchard Scene Where First Grade Fruit is Packed in  Boxes.
remembered, too, that he had paid five
cents for two apples during the winter.
He made a rapid calculation, and went
to his father.
"My expenses will be pretty heavy
and I would like to make my own expenses this year," he told his father, as
he related the incident to the writer a
few years afterward, when he was winning first prizes in the National Horticultural Exposition,  in Council Bluffs.
His father was surprised, and said so.
"What I want is to be given the orchard. I will look after it, pay all expenses, and split the profits. '
Then and there the agreement was
sealed. The orchard had long been a
sore spot with the older man. It had
cost him money to plant. It was several years old, occupied a ten acre field,
valued for taxes at *1,500, and had
never paid a cent of profits.
So Ed Mintzer took charge of the orchard—but he did not go back to Chicago that year.      Instead he became a
fruit.      But the trouble was he had not
yet learned the best methods of selling.
Mistakes,  in Handling  the Crop.
Consider some of the mistakes he
says he made. In the flrst place he
tried to raise too big a crop. As a
result he had few perfect apples, and
great quantities of small, scrubby ones.
And then he sold his first consignment
to a buyer who made him an offer of a
lump sum for a certain, designated
number of trees. He got far less than
he should for his best apples. The
remainder of his crop he hauled by the
wagon load to town, dumped them in
cars, and sent them to Chicago at a
time when most of the other shippers
were doing the same thing. Result—a
summer's work wasted and debt besides.
The remembrance of the apples he
had bought when he was a student- in
the university still lingered. He added
to the price he had received exorbitant
profits for the middlemen, and still he
couldn't make his apples figure two for
Ave cents to the consumer. He resolved to And the reason.
That autumn, after the winter work
was pretty well shaped up, Mintzer
went bar'- to Chicago. He spent a week
or two in water street. He talked with
dozens of commission men. He visited
all sorts of grocery stores, and interviewed almost everyone from the proprietor to the delivery boy. And out
of it all came one big fundamental fact.
Apples that sold for a big proflt were
bought almost entirely for their locks.
This big fundamental lead to another
conclusion. People don't
buy apples by the carload,
and you caii not make a
barrel attractive no matter
what you do to It.
So Mintzer returned
home, bought some boxes,
and started in to. learn to
pack. He worked at the
Job for two weeks, but In
all that time he was never
able to get his apples Into
a box so they would look
like the ones he had seen
on display in the Chicago
stores.
Ix-ssons From Western
Fruit Sections.
The rest of the winter,
and the next summer was
spent in the west. He visited several of the well-
known apple-raising sections, and worked in various orchards. When he
came back he knew how to
pack. Now he could put
apples together so that
they would look right and,
what Is equally important,
would ship well. He had
gained and mastered one of
the west's effective secrets.
But to pack his fruit so
that, when lt was placed in
a store window, it would
look attractive was only one
■———-"-"—"■" of several things he discovered. One of these was that his climate, which is not greatly different
from Indiana's, was as goo.l and equally as dependable as some of the western states. He found that care, and
a small out-lay for smudge pots would
prevent late freezing. He learned, too,
V~._i an orchard demands cultivation
the same as any other crop, and that
you will not raise many apples if you
sow your orchard to bluegrass or timothy and use it for a hog pasture. And
he found out that the orchard pests—
the bogey-man that has kept many an
Indiana farmer from going into commercial orcharding more rapidly, were
not especially confined to any one locality.
Producing All First Class Fruit.
"Spraying is all I have to dc  to get
rid of the pests," Mintzer declares.    "It
simply takes attention.    All  I  did was
to write to our experiment station, get
Continued on page 4.