REMARKS AT ANNUAL MEETING BY SECY. F. CRANEFIELD, MADISON, WIS.
President Cashman: We have with us today, Prof. Cranefield, secretary of
the Wisconsin Society. I am sure everybody will be pleased to hear from
him.
Mr. Cranefield: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I thank you, Mr.
President, for your very kind introduction. I know you meant well when
you introduced me as professor, but I really must plead "not guilty" to
the charge. There was a time, long ago, when I was connected with our
Agricultural College, in a minor relation, that I was not in a position
to resent it, but I have reformed since, and as secretary of the
Wisconsin Horticultural Society I am trying to live down the past.
It goes without saying that I am glad to be here. I want to come as long
as you will let me come. We of the Wisconsin society are watching you
closely to see if we can by any means learn the secret of your success,
and to that end we are here in considerable force. Our president is
here, and the managers of two of our largest co-operative fruit shippers
associations also.
Frankly, we want to beat you if we can. You have the biggest and the
best society in the country, and we have the second biggest and next
best, and we are striving for first place.
Having now disposed of the usual compliments befitting the occasion I
will aim to tell you of a few things we are trying to do in the
Wisconsin society.
The efforts of our society during the past ten years have been directed
quite largely to the development of commercial fruit-growing in the
state. While we have not overlooked nor forgotten the home owner we have
been working to take commercial orcharding out of the hands of the
farmer and put it in the hands of specialists, and we are succeeding. We
have today about thirty thousand acres of purely commercial orchards in
Wisconsin and more coming. We discourage by every means at command the
planting of fruit trees by the man who is engaged in general farming
except sufficient for his own use.
Further, in this campaign we aim to concentrate our efforts on certain
districts so as to build up fruit centers. For instance we have in Door
County, that narrow little neck of land between Green Bay and Lake
Michigan, over seven thousand five hundred acres of orchards, apple and
cherry.
Along the Bayfield shore line we have another splendid fruit district
almost, if not quite, as well known as Hood River and worth vastly more.
In the southwestern corner of the state along the valley of the Kickapoo
River, on the high bluffs on either side of the river, have been planted
a thousand acres of apples and cherries in the past five years.
While not all of this development is directly due to the Horticultural
Society, ours has been the moving spirit. The Kickapoo development is
due wholly to the work of the society.
In this way we are establishing an industry that will be a tremendous
asset to the state. There was a time when dairying was but a feeble
industry in Wisconsin, and now we lead.
Our society also aids in the development of marketing associations. In
doing these things we also aid the farmer and home owner, for whatever
is best in the commercial orchard is best in the home orchard. Spraying,
pruning and cultivation as practiced by the expert serve as models for
the farmer who has but two dozen trees.
The other activities of our society are similar to yours. We publish a
magazine, as you do; we hold two conventions, as you do; in fact our
work, and no less our interests, are the same as yours, and I most
sincerely hope that the very pleasant relations that have existed
between the societies may continue for all time.
Marketing Fruit Direct.
H. G. STREET, HEBRON, ILL.
In studying this subject, the direct marketing of fruit, let us first
see how much it includes. Does it include simply marketing alone? Or
does the success of it depend principally upon the varieties of fruit
set out together with the after cultivation, pruning and spraying? First
of all you must interest people in your work by producing something that
they really want, and half of your problem will then be solved.
There are any number of places in the northwest where the demand far
exceeds the supply. I do not mean for the common run of fruit full of
worms and covered with scab, but, instead, strictly No. 1 fruit of the
very best varieties.
About 1901, through the advice of my uncle, Dr. A. H. Street, of Albert
Lea, I joined your society, and through the experience of your members I
learned many valuable lessons. Perhaps the one that impressed me the
most was that of grafting our choicest varieties upon hardy crab stocks
so as to make them hardy enough to withstand our hardest winters, and by
so doing it nearly insures us against total failures in the fruit crop
and especially against losing the trees outright.
[Illustration: Mr. H. G. Street, of Hebron, Ills.]
This top-working of course will not do all; we still have to assist
Nature by proper spraying, pruning, cultivating, etc. Doing all in your
power to secure a crop each year to supply the trade you have already
worked up is a big item in holding it.
While studying your conditions, together with those of Wisconsin and
Illinois, I became very much interested in the native plums as well as
in the apple industry. Therefore I also set out some three acres of the
following varieties: Surprise, Terry, Wyant, Hammer and Hawkeye, also
some of the Emerald and Lombard.
As this was then new business to me, I had fallen into no deep ruts, and
of course I took it for granted that all horticulturists practiced what
they preached. Therefore I pruned, sprayed, etc., according to
directions, and in due time the fruits of my labor commenced to show up,
and they certainly were attractive to the eye as well as to the taste.
[Illustration: Wolf River apple tree twelve years old, bearing eighteen
bushels, in H. G. Street's orchard.]
As our supply increased our demand increased also, so that for the past
five years our average plum crop has been around 2,000 baskets (the
8-lb. grape basket) and all sold readily at 25 to 35 cents retail.
We are located at Hebron, Illinois, eight miles south of Lake Geneva,
Wis., on the Chicago & Lake Geneva Railway, which makes an ideal
location for a fancy trade. During plum harvest it is nothing uncommon
to have fifty to 100 visitors a day. These customers include all
classes, from the Chicago millionaires to the common laborers, and all
receive the same cordial reception.
We make it a point never to allow them to think that we are close with
our fruit--not even the neighborhood boys, as they are our best
friends. What they buy we charge them a good fair price for and never
fail to give all new customers a few choice samples of best varieties.
By the latter part of the plum season our big red Wolf River apples
commence to show up and cook well; also Wealthy and McIntosh commence to
get ripe enough to eat, and the demand each year has far exceeded the
supply.
So far we have had very few poor apples, but we always sort them into
three grades, the third grade being made up into cider to sell while
sweet. The second grade we sell as such for immediate use. The firsts of
the McIntosh we have sold at $2.00 to $2.50 per bushel, Wealthy,
Jonathan and Grimes at $1.50 to $2.00, while Wolf, N. W. Greening,
Salome, Winesap, Milwaukee, etc., have averaged us $1.25 per bushel. We
are always very careful not to have any bruised, diseased or ill shaped
specimens in our first grade.
The President: Can you tell us something more about your experience in
marketing direct? Do you sell all the fruit you raise on the place?
Mr. Street: We sell about all the fruit that we raise direct to the
consumer. When we first started we started with strawberries, and about
half of our crop went to the merchants, and he would retail it for 20
per cent, but to any one that came there for it we would charge the full
retail price, same as he had to charge, and we never had any trouble
with any of the stores that we dealt with. If we have any seconds or
anything we don't like to put out to the stores we sell them to our
customers and charge them whatever we think would be right for them.
As to plums, about two-thirds of those would sell right direct to
customers coming there, the rest we supplied to the stores at 20 per
cent discount so that they could retail them at the same price that we
retail them for. Since the apples have begun to bear it seems that
two-thirds of the people want the McIntosh, and almost everyone is
satisfied with its flavor. They average a little larger with us than the
Wealthy, and some of them you can hardly tell from the Wealthy unless
you know just about what the fruit is. Last year we kept them until
about February or possibly later, but an apple with as good a flavor as
that you cannot keep from being eaten up.
The President: I suppose that is automobile trade?
Mr. Street: A great deal of it is.
The President: How did you get it? By advertising?
Mr. Street: No, by doing something so much different from what anybody
else is doing you get people to talking. I think the Wolf River apple
together with the Terry and Surprise plums have been the cause of
getting started. Of course, the McIntosh now is helping out, too. You
give a person a few Wolf River, not for eating but for cooking, and then
give him a Wealthy or something like that to eat--they will be looking
at the big Wolf River and eating the other and seem to be well satisfied
and always come back. Whenever we sell to the stores we always gauge our
prices so that the majority of their customers will take our fruit
before taking the shipped in fruit from Chicago. We find with grapes we
can charge about five cents a basket more than they retail the Michigan
grapes for.
[Illustration: View in eleven year old orchard of H. G. Street.]
For native plums we get more than they do for the Michigan fruit. We
have had quite a good many of the Burbank plums, but we cannot sell over
one-third as many as we do of the natives.
A Member: You don't ship them, so don't consider the packing?
Mr. Street: The only ones we ship are those ordered by people coming
there or by letter. If they want a bushel we pack them in a bushel box.
If they want three or six bushels then we pack them in barrels.
Mr. Anderson: Where are you located?
Mr. Street: Just south of the Wisconsin state line.
Mr. Anderson: I am located 100 miles west of here, and I shipped out 400
bushels of apples to the Dakotas last year direct.
Mr. Richardson: How many growers are there in your neighborhood growing
fruit commercially?
Mr. Street: I do not know of any who spray, cultivate and prune
according to the best methods within about 100 miles. We always make it
a point to give our customers good fruit, so that we are not afraid to
recommend it. Then there is another advantage. If they come right there,
and we have any seconds we can tell them just what they are, and if they
want them we can sell them for what they are worth, but if we are
putting them into a store, I prefer not to put in seconds.
Mr. Kochendorfer: I think that is the advantage of disposing on a public
market. You have a chance to sell the inferior goods without any coming
back.
Mr. Street: The main thing is to use improved methods and try to outdo
the other fellow. Cultivate a little more thoroughly, put in your cover
crop, not over-fertilize but all you possibly can; give the dormant
spray; spray before bloom very thoroughly and again after bloom; two
weeks after that again, about July 15th.
Mr. Richardson: How many apple trees have you?
Mr. Street: We now have ten acres in apples, but most of them are young,
about three acres in bearing.
Mr. Richardson: I would like to ask the gentleman if in a small place
that way he hasn't a better local market than we have here in the larger
cities. Around Lake Minnetonka they raise grapes, but we get most of our
grapes from Ohio and Indiana. I have wondered why it is that these
grapes go to another market when they can just as well go to the
Minneapolis market. You know as well as I do anyone buying fruit in the
Twin Cities always buy fruit grown in Ohio or Indiana.
Mr. Street: I do not know why it is, but so far we haven't realized that
we have any competition. We charge for our best eating apples fully as
much as the stores have to charge for the Western fancy packed fruit.
There is not a worm hole or speck of disease on the No. 1, and really I
can't see how they can compete after raising the fruit in the West and
packing and shipping it to Chicago and then out there. The price they
would have to charge there would make us a good fair price; in fact, a
good big price.
A Satisfactory Marketing System.
G. A. ANDERSON, RENVILLE.
I have marketed this fall some over 400 barrels of apples, mostly
Wealthy, Duchess and Northwestern Greening. Three hundred barrels of
these were shipped direct to local merchants in Dakota and western
Minnesota towns in small shipments of a few barrels at a time or as fast
as they could sell them. I started this way of marketing during the big
crop of 1913 and this year again, getting nearly all of my old customers
back and many new ones. I secured satisfactory prices, and for my
location I believe I have solved the marketing problem. One does not pay
much attention to the marketing as long as enough only for local demand
is produced, but when one has a surplus to dispose of the marketing
problem looms rather large. I have tried several times shipping to
commission firms, but have never received satisfactory returns.
A Successful Cold Storage for Apples.
H. F. HANSEN, ORCHARDIST, ALBERT LEA.
Mr. Clarence Wedge: I want to preface this short paper with the
statement that Mr. Hansen is a man who has worked himself up from the
very bottom of the horticultural ladder. He came to Albert Lea a very
poor man, and I think supported himself for some time by trapping and
fishing and such work as he was able to do. He is a man with a great
tendency to investigate and to work out problems for himself. By his
thrift and persevering investigations he has brought himself into a fine
property and great success. He is the market gardener in our part of the
country and a credit to his kind. (Mr. Wedge reads the paper.)
When my orchard, near the city of Albert Lea, began to bear heavy crops
of fruit, I found it very desirable to hold the Wealthy and other kinds
that ripen at the same time until after the farmers had marketed their
fruit. We have a very good cold storage in Albert Lea that is open to
the public, but the price they charge is sixty cents per barrel for two
months' storage, which is more than the fruit will bear, and so I began
to think of putting up a cold storage of my own.
My first one was built underground with pipes for ice and salt to cool
it, something like the system that I am now using. But I found out in
the first season that it takes a great deal of ice to offset the heat
that is coming in from the ground at the sides and bottom of the cellar.
And so I built the storage which I am now using entirely above ground,
using the basement under it for storing cabbage and vegetables. I built
this in 1913, the size 28x56 feet, using cement blocks for the basement,
where the cabbages are stored. The cold storage above this is built as
follows:
First, an ordinary frame building with 2x4 inch studdings sheathed on
the outside with drop siding with No. 3 flooring. Inside of this
sheathing 2x4 inch studs placed flatwise, sheathed on the inside with
No. 3 flooring, and the six-inch space back of the studs filled with
sawdust. On the outside of this firing strips one-half foot are nailed,
which are covered with linofelt. One-half foot firing strips are nailed
inside of this, and these also covered with linofelt. To this again
one-half foot firing strips are added, to which are nailed metal lath,
and the whole is plastered with cement. The floor both above and below
is made of 2×12 joists, with No. 3 flooring nailed below the joints, the
space between which is then filled with ten inches of saw dust, leaving
an air space of two inches at the upper edge of the joists. The joists
are then covered with linofelt and then the linofelt covered with No. 3
flooring.
On the north and west sides I found it necessary to add one more
waterproof coat of linofelt in order to make sure of keeping out the
frost.
I have so far only finished up for cold storage one-half of the room,
using the other half for a packing room, so that my present facilities
are only 28×28 feet. This room is cooled by eight inch pipes of
galvanized iron, extending from the attic above to troughs near the
floor, that are sloping so as to carry off the melted ice. These pipes
are on both sides about two feet apart. The ice is pulled up into the
attic by horsepower and broken up small enough into pieces to feed the
pipes. The amount of salt used with the ice depends upon how fast we
want the ice to melt. A large quantity of salt cools the storage down
quicker. In practice I find that it takes one hour for a man to elevate
a ton of ice, chop it up and fill the pipes. They hold something over a
ton and must be filled every other day in ordinary September weather. It
will not do to let the pipes remain less than one-half full. When the
ice gets down that far, we have to fill again.
The total cost of my storage when it is entirely furnished up and the
present capacity doubled will be about $3,000.00. At present it holds
2,000 standard size apple boxes.
I find that it only pays to put in good fruit that in ordinary seasons
will keep until the first of March and hold its flavor well and give
good satisfaction on the market. Icing stops about the middle of
November. The cost per box for storage is as follows: Ice and salt, ten
cents. Interest on investment, six cents. I have figured out carefully
the entire cost of growing and storing apples, and find out that leaving
out the interest on the value of the land, it will approximate
forty-eight cents per bushel. This includes cultivation, spraying,
packing, and picking. The question which now interests me is whether we
can grow fruit good enough and stand the expense and compete with apples
grown in the other good fruit sections of the country.
Mr. Older: I had the pleasure of visiting this plant with Mr. Wedge, and
this man had quite a good many boxes of as fine apples as you would wish
to see. This was along the latter part of February, and they were in
fine condition. He had a lot of Jonathans and Yankees and some other
varieties I don't remember, grown on top-worked trees there.
The Plum Curculio.
EDWARD A. NELSON, UNIVERSITY FARM, ST. PAUL.
(Prize Winner at Gideon Memorial Contest.)
The small crescent-shaped punctures, so common on apples, plums, peaches
and other fruits, are made by a small snout-beetle known as the plum
curculio. The beetles issue from their winter quarters at about the time
the trees are in full bloom and feed on the tender foliage, buds and
blossoms. Later they attack the newly set fruit, cutting small circular
holes through the skin in feeding, while the females, in the operation
of egg-laying, make the crescentic cuts so characteristic of this
species. The egg, deposited under the skin of the fruit, soon hatches
into a very small whitish larva or grub, which makes its way into the
flesh of the fruit. Here it feeds greedily and grows rapidly, becoming,
in the course of two weeks, the fat, dirty white "worm" so well known
among fruit growers.
The curculio is a native of North America and for more than 150 years
has been known as an enemy of fruits. Our early horticultural literature
abounds with reference to its depredations. In more recent times the
great increase in planting of fruits, brought about to supply the
increased demand, has permitted it to become much more abundant than
formerly, and the plum curculio constitutes at the present time one of
the most serious insect enemies of orchard fruits. Statistics gathered
of its depredations show that it is distributed over much of the area of
the United States. Its western limit is, roughly, a line drawn through
the centers of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma
and Texas. East of this line the entire United States is infested except
the southern third of Florida and the northern half of Maine.
Is the plum curculio causing much damage to the fruit growing industry
of this country? That it is is shown by the National Conservation
Committee in its report in Volume III, page 309, where it states that
the average annual loss in late years to only three fruits is as
follows:
Apples $3,257,806
Peaches 4,088,814
Plums 1,244,149
----------
Grand Total $8,590,769
Just think of it! A total loss each year to only three fruits of over
$8,500,000. This amount is a heavy drain upon the fruit growing
industry of this country. During the past twenty-five or thirty years
the total damage caused by this insect, to the various fruits which it
attacks, would, on a conservative estimate, probably be not less than
$100,000,000.
These figures show the absolute need of the adoption of effective
remedial measures against this insect so as to lessen this loss. But
before we can hope to combat this insect systematically and successfully
it is necessary to know its life history and habits.
[Illustration: The curculio in its stages of growth, and its fruit
injury.]
There are four distinct stages in its life cycle: (1) The egg, (2) the
larva, or "worm," (3) the pupa, and (4) the adult, or beetle.
The curculio passes the winter in the adult stage under accumulations
of partly decayed leaves, among the closely-packed dried grass of
sod-covered orchards, and probably wherever suitable protection from the
winter may be found. Its depredations are usually worse near woods, so
it probably finds here very suitable places for wintering.
In the spring, when the fruit buds are unfolding, the beetles begin to
emerge from their winter quarters and feed to some extent on the
blossoms and tender leaves of the fruit trees. Mating soon begins, and
by the time the fruit is well set the beetles make this fruit the chief
object of their attention. The circular punctures in the skin are
feeding punctures, while the crescent-shaped ones are egg-laying
punctures. A single egg is deposited in a puncture, although several may
be placed in a single fruit. From one to eight eggs may be deposited
daily by an individual female, which may be continued for several
months. The great majority of the eggs, however, are deposited by the
end of eight weeks. These eggs hatch in from three to seven days, being
influenced greatly by the weather.
The egg hatches into a larva, or "worm," which bores into the fruit. It
becomes full-grown in from twelve to twenty days and bores out of the
fruit. It enters the soil, burrows to a depth of one-half to two inches,
and forms an earthern cell in which to pupate. In three or four weeks it
emerges as a full grown beetle and attacks the ungathered fruit and the
foliage. On the approach of cold weather the beetle seeks a protected
place in which to pass the winter.
The character of the injury is very nearly alike in all fruits. In the
plum the fruit often falls to the ground before mature. In seasons of
short crops very little fruit may remain to ripen. The punctures cause
the fruit to become mis-shaped and to exude masses of gum. The ripe
fruit becomes "wormy." The late varieties may be seriously injured by
the new generation of adults. In the apple the injury to the fruit is
about the same as in the plum, except that the infested fruit is not so
likely to fall to the ground and that the egg rarely hatches into the
grub there. The fruit becomes knotted and pitted. The late varieties may
also be injured by the new generation of adults. In the peach, cherry
and other stone fruits, the injury closely resembles that of the plum.
Although the plum curculio has some natural enemies that tend to reduce
its numbers somewhat, yet they are not important enough to be considered
as effective means of control. Some of these natural enemies are
parasites of various kinds, birds, chickens and the like.