both ends of the barrel, in addition to a waxed paper next to the apples
on the face end, stenciled with the name of the grower and his
postoffice address. Use uniform sized apples for the face as much as
possible, and of good color. The face is permitted to be 20 per cent.
better than the contents. Drop facing I consider best for the second
layer rather than double facing, as it holds the face apple in position
better and presents a more solid face to the buyer when opened. The
barrels should be filled uniformly from bottom to top with an even grade
of fruit. No reputable packer will attempt any fraud upon the purchaser
in this respect. In tailing off the barrel preparatory to putting in the
head, the better way is to face the apples on their side in concentric
rings with the color side of the apple up. I would not select these
apples as to size or color, but let them correctly represent both as
they run through the barrel. There can be no objection, however, to your
putting the colored side of the apple up. We should always look as well
as we can, and first impressions if good, while not always lasting, are
desirable in the apple business of inspecting packages. In filling the
barrel care must be taken to gently settle the apples into place by
shaking the barrel from time to time as it is filled. After the bottom
is faced off the corrugated cap is placed on the apples, with the smooth
side next to the apples, and the head pressed into place. It is well to
use headliners to secure the heads and not trust to the use of nails
alone. Have some regard for the man who has to open these heads in
storage or the salesroom. Try a few yourself if you never have, and you
will use headliners for him who comes after if for no other reason.
Mr. Kellogg: How do you get rid of the waste apples that would rot in
the orchard?
Mr. Dunlap: We have a large vinegar plant, and we convert the cider into
vinegar and sell it as cider vinegar. We have sometimes shipped the
fresh product of the cider mill to factories, where it is made into
vinegar. Then there are evaporators for evaporating them. Take a certain
grade of apples not good to grind up into cider, and they evaporate this
grade of apples. Then there are canning factories that also take them.
The cider mill is a very good way to work up your culls and then sell as
vinegar.
A Member: What do these apple graders cost?
Mr. Dunlap: From $75.00 to $125.00. The price usually depends upon the
equipment.
A Member: Do you use clear cider for vinegar?
Mr. Dunlap: I use clear cider for making vinegar, and if it is too
strong to meet the requirements of the law we dilute it when we sell it.
A Member: I would like to ask if you have any difficulty in getting your
cider vinegar up to the requirements of the law?
Mr. Dunlap: We do not have any trouble about that, except that made from
summer apples. Any cider that will grade 18 or 24 with the saccharimeter
in the fall of the year, when it is made, will make good vinegar.
A Member: Do you pack all one-size of apples in a barrel?
Mr. Dunlap: No.
A Member: Do you use very nearly the same size apples in a barrel, or do
you put large ones at the top and bottom?
Mr. Dunlap: I have heard of growers doing that, but the only way to pack
a barrel honestly is to select your facers--the law permits that they
may have 20 per cent. advantage of the rest of the barrel. The rest of
the barrel ought to be graded uniformly throughout. I don't mean by that
they should all be apples of three or four inches diameter, but that
they run above a certain figure with a minimum of 2-1/4 or 2-1/2,
depending upon the variety you are packing. In running them over
graders, which sizes them, all over that size go over the apron and into
the barrel.
A Member: Do you face both ends of the barrel?
Mr. Dunlap: Yes, sir, we do. We do not undertake to select for the
bottom or tail of the barrel apples as to size or color, but we do
this--we lay those apples around in concentric rings and turn the color
side or best looking side of the apple up and as nearly level as may be
across the top and just the right height, so that when they are pressed
into the barrel the barrel will be tight enough so as not to have the
apples loose, and yet not have them bruised in the heading. It takes
practice to do that just at the right height.
The barrel should be shaken as it is being filled. If you do not shake
often when being filled and settle the apples down so they reach the
place where they belong, no matter how tight you make your barrel, when
it gets into the car and on the train and in motion that constant
shaking and jar will loosen the apples, and you will have a slack
barrel.
A Member: What sort of apples go to the canneries?
Mr. Dunlap: That, of course, depends upon the season. If the season is
such that the No. 2 apples are not worth any great amount of money, they
will buy everything except cull stock below the strictly No. 1 apple and
use them in the canning factory. If the price is high they will probably
take the drops, those dropped in picking, or good sound drops. We
usually make a practice of cleaning up our drops once a week off the
ground in picking time. Before we begin picking we clean the ground
entirely and run that through the vinegar factory, into the cider mill,
and after that is done any apples that drop in picking they are disposed
of in various ways, sometimes to the evaporator, sometimes to the
canning factory and sometimes they are shipped in bulk if they are good
sound apples and not injured in any way except perhaps for a few
bruises.
A Member: In debating the question of the grower and the cannery we are
anxious to know just how far it is practical to use apples--what apples
we can use after grading them, say, for instance, into Nos. 1 and 2? Can
we use a deformed apple? For instance, do the canners in your country
buy deformed apples--I mean lacking in roundness?
Mr. Dunlap: They can use them; they are a little more expensive to
handle when you put them on the fork to peel them. Of course, they have
to use the knife on them afterwards in those places where they are not
perfect, cutting out any imperfect spots on them. But as a rule they
require pretty fair quality of apple for cannery and above a certain
size. They wouldn't want to use anything less than two inches in
diameter, and from that on, and they get as good apples as they possibly
can. They have to limit themselves as to prices according to how much
they can get for their product.
A Member: What grader do you recommend?
Mr. Dunlap: Well, I don't think that I care to advertise any grader. I
am not interested in any.
A Member: You are a long way from home, and it might enlighten the rest
of us.
Mr. Dunlap: There are several graders on the market, and for all I know,
giving good service. I am using the Trescott, made in New York.
A Member: What is the matter with the Hardy?
Mr. Dunlap: I never used the Hardy--I don't know about that. Some of
them will bruise the apples more than others.
Mr. Sauter: What form of packing for apples will bring the best prices?
Mr. Dunlap: I investigated that. I have packed as high as a couple of
thousand boxes of apples, and I have taken the very best I had and
barreled. I picked out the extra selects and boxed them. Then I took a
No. 1 grade from those that that were left and the No. 2 grade, and my
No. 1 grade in barrels were disposed of before I could sell my boxes at
all in the market. The boxes were the last thing I could dispose of.
Considering the extra cost of boxing I was out of pocket in selling them
in boxes. Bushel baskets are all right, you can pack the basket with no
more expense than packing a barrel.
Mr. Brackett: What can a cannery afford to pay for apples?
Mr. Dunlap: I have never been in the cannery business, I could not tell.
Mr. Brackett: They are talking of starting a cannery where I live and I
wondered what they can afford to pay.
Mr. Dunlap: Some five or six years ago I sold a number of hundred
bushels to canneries at 60 cents per hundred pounds. Whether they can
afford to pay that or not I don't know. I haven't sold any to them for
several years now. In fact, I should judge they couldn't afford to pay
that for them because they went out of business.
Mr. Brackett: In other words, they can't pay over 35 or 30 cents a
bushel?
Mr. Dunlap: I don't know what they can afford to pay.
A Member: We had a canning factory that paid 40 cents a bushel of 50
pounds, that would be 80 cents a hundred.
Mr. Brackett: Are they still in business?
A Member: Yes, sir.
Mr. Sauter: We had one that paid 52 cents a bushel.
Mr. Dunlap: If they were to can these apples in Illinois and ship them
up here they have got to pay freight to come in competition with your
apples.
Mr. Sauter: I sprayed last spring first with lime-sulphur, and my
sprayer worked fine. I had a hand sprayer, but when I mixed the
lime-sulphur and the arsenate of lead it almost stopped up. What was the
matter, was it the mixture or the sprayer?
Mr. Dunlap: Most all of these mixtures when you put them together ought
to be more or less diluted.
Mr. Sauter: How long must they stand dissolved?
Mr. Dunlap: The lime-sulphur is in solution, and if you have that in
your water tank the best way is to put your arsenate of lead in in the
form of a paste and dilute it until you get it so that there is about
two pounds of arsenate of lead to a gallon of water, and with that you
can pour it into your tank and if you have an agitator in there you
won't have any difficulty with it. In the early days of spraying when we
used blue vitriol with lime, we tried a concentrated solution of the
blue vitriol and lime and found we couldn't get it through the strainer,
but by diluting it, putting our blue vitriol in one tank, and putting
half of our water that we intended putting in the sprayer in that, and
taking another tank and putting half the water and the lime in that and
then putting the two together in this diluted solution, we didn't have
any trouble, but in putting in the concentrated solutions together we
had a sticky mess and all sorts of trouble. It would not go through the
strainer.
Mr. Sauter: How does the powdered arsenate compare with the paste?
Mr. Dunlap: I haven't had any personal experience with the powder and I
would have to refer you to the experiment station.
Mr. Sauter: Powder mixes a great deal easier.
Mr. Dunlap: Yes, sir. I had this experience with hydrated lime. The
hydrated lime, as you know, comes in sacks and in the form of flour, and
all you have to do is just to pour that into the water, and there is no
trouble about mixing it at all. With lime from barrels that we used for
making bordeaux, we would slake it and run it off into barrels, and
there we diluted it so that we got two pounds to every gallon of water,
our stock solution. But with the hydrated lime we can take so much out,
so much by weight, and put it into the tank, and it dissolves right in
the water. But we found this difficulty as between slaked lime and the
hydrated lime. While the hydrated is very nice to use it did not possess
the adhesive quality that the regular slaked lime did, and it would wash
off the trees and take the vitriol solution with it, and we discontinued
its use.
Mr. Sauter: You think it best for anybody with a small orchard to make
his own lime-sulphur solution?
Mr. Dunlap: That depends on how he is equipped. It costs a great deal
less to make your own solution than it does to buy it. Whether you could
afford to do it or not depends upon the amount you spray and your
equipment. You really ought to have, in making your own lime-sulphur, a
steam boiler, although you can make it in an ordinary farm feed boiler.
You can boil it right in that and turn it out after it is made, stirring
it with a wooden paddle while cooking. I find that if we are equipped
for it we will make a product that is equal to the imported product, but
we ought to have a little more equipment. We ought to have steam and run
this steam into our cooking vat to keep it boiling at the right
temperature right along, and boil it for an hour, and then have a
mechanical agitator in the bottom of the tub that keeps it stirred up,
and keep the cover closed down as nearly tight as possible so as to
exclude the air as much as possible, letting the surplus steam escape,
and in that way we get a product as good as anything we are able to buy,
at less than half the price. If one is using a great quantity that is
the way to do it, but in small quantities I don't think it would pay to
bother with it. (Applause.)
Marketing Fruit at Mankato.
P. L. KEENE, UNIVERSITY FARM, ST. PAUL.
(Gideon Memorial Contest.)
Mankato has a population of about twelve thousand and is just about
within the car-lot market. In seasons of low production it can easily
use all the fruit grown in the vicinity, but in seasons of good
production some must be shipped out. This irregular supply makes it
difficult to obtain a satisfactory method of marketing the fruit.
Nearly all kinds of fruit are grown here. Apples, strawberries and
raspberries are grown to the greatest extent. There are several orchards
having from five hundred to a thousand trees, while many small fruit
growers have several acres of strawberries and raspberries. Plums,
blackberries, currants and gooseberries are grown on a smaller scale, so
that there is seldom enough produced to make it necessary to ship them.
The number of varieties grown is very great, as it is in almost every
locality where the industry is relatively young. There are over forty
varieties of apples grown on a more or less large scale. This makes the
marketing problem still more difficult. Many of the growers are
beginning to specialize in two or three varieties, such as Wealthy,
Patten, Northwestern and Malinda. Last year some of the growers produced
as many as five carloads. Small fruits are brought in by the wagon load
during the heaviest part of the season, making it possible for the fruit
houses to load a car in a day.
The commercial growers use good, practical methods of culture, keeping
the land well cultivated and using cover crops and mulch; but many of
the small growers of half-way fruit men--those who do not specialize in
fruit growing--neglect their orchards. Most growers properly prune and
thin their trees and bushes, while many are beginning to spray.
In the picking, grading and packing of the fruit is where the great
majority fail. After they have grown the fruit carefully and
successfully, they fail to properly harvest and dispose of it. This
fault lies in the fact that they have specialized in the production of
their product and have given little time or attention to the marketing
of it. They realize, though, that success in fruit growing depends as
largely upon proper marketing as upon proper growing.
The first step in marketing is the picking of the fruit. Fruit, as any
other product, should be picked at a certain time; and the grower who
allows his fruit to remain on the tree or bush too long, as is often
done with the apple, until his work is caught up, is the grower who
receives unsatisfactory prices for his product. Many farmers bring
windfalls and bruised apples mixed with the hand picked ones and expect
as much as the grower who carefully picks his apples. The picking
utensils are also often a cause of injury. Tin pails, wooden buckets and
boxes are used to too great an extent. These naturally bruise more or
less of the apples as they are put into the pails, especially if extreme
care is not used. The pouring of the fruit from one receptacle into
another is still another source of injury.
The small fruit grower usually handles his fruit with greater care than
the apple grower does, for the simple reason that improper handling of
these fruits soon shows itself, and the grower may find that he is
unable to dispose of his fruit. The most common cause of injury to small
fruit is over-ripeness.
[Illustration: P. L. Keene.]
The improper sorting and grading of fruit is another cause of
unprofitable returns. All bruised, wormy or injured apples should be
discarded at picking time. The presence of only a few inferior fruits in
a lot will bring the price down considerably. The same holds true with
berries, and is even more important, for if one berry rots it soon
spreads disease to the other berries. For this reason the sorting out of
all inferior fruit is essential, even more so than grading.
The grading aids in getting better prices but is not necessary for
profitable results. If small fruit is well sorted, the growers claim
that it is not necessary to grade it, for the fruit will then be fairly
uniform.
With apples, grading is distinctly beneficial. Many marketable apples
may be blemished so that their appearance is hurt, while their keeping
and shipping qualities are but slightly injured. The best grade must
contain apples uniform in size, shape and color, and free from all
blemishes. Hence it is readily seen why at least two grades are
essential. The growers at Mankato do not grade their apples to more than
one grade and this amounts only to sorting. The best of the commercial
apple growers carefully sort out the small and injured fruits, but a
large portion of the growers even neglect this to some extent.
The method of packing the fruit is very variable, and in fact a large
part of it is not packed at all. Most of the small fruit growers use the
sixteen quart crate, while the apple, if it is packed at all, is packed
in barrels. One requirement of a package is that it be clean, and if it
must be clean a secondhand package cannot be used. Many fall down here
by using secondhand, odd sized and dirty crates or barrels. The shipping
crate should be kept out of the field and off of the ground. The place
for it is in the packing house.
The apple growers often take their barrels into the field to fill them
and thus more or less soil them. This is not done to any great extent at
Mankato, for most of the barrel packing is done at the fruit houses, the
growers bringing in the apples loose in a wagonbox. This is a good
system as the apples are only handled three times: from the tree to the
picking basket, from the picking basket to the wagonbox, and from here
into barrels. By this method the apples are sorted both at the picking
and barreling time. If the apples are to be graded or packed at the
farm, a packing house should be provided at or near the orchard.
It is needless to speak of the slack and inefficient method of marketing
apples in sacks, salt barrels and odd boxes; but this is still done by
some half-way growers. They often have to either take the fruit back and
feed it to the pigs or give it away. Even when they are able to sell it,
they barely cover expense of picking and marketing.
Several methods of selling their fruit are available to the growers
around Mankato. The different methods used are (1) selling direct to
consumer, (2) selling to stores, (3) selling to wholesale houses, (4)
selling to commission men.
The amount handled in the "direct to the consumer" way is rather large
in the case of small fruit, but there is very little so-called "apple
peddling" done. Some growers have regular customers whom they supply
yearly with a barrel or more of apples, but this is usually some friend
or relative. Some growers peddle out their summer apples by driving
through the residence sections of the city and selling to anyone who
wants to buy and in such quantities as they desire, but not all growers
care to follow this plan. Sales are always made for cash, except perhaps
where a person is a regular customer. This method is too unsatisfactory
to be used for winter apples but is often advantageous in disposing of a
large crop of summer apples. The fruit is not usually in very good
shape, and is often that which the fruit dealers have rejected. The
fruit is marketed in any package that happens to be handy, or loose, in
the box, and is measured out usually in small quantities to the buyer.
[Illustration: A load of apples from P.L. Keene's orchard, near Mankato]
The handling of berries direct to consumer is much more systematized and
therefore proves more satisfactory to both parties concerned. The
majority of growers sell a considerable quantity in this way. They pack
in sixteen quart crates, and usually will not divide a crate. The
berries are for the most part delivered on order of the customer, for
cash. Each grower has his regular customers, and some advertise to a
limited extent. This method is usually satisfactory to the grower for he
sells at a fixed price, and over that which he could get at the stores.
He finds that it pays him to furnish good berries, for if he delivers a
poor crate the lady receiving that crate is sure to make it known to her
neighbors, while a good crate will add to his reputation. Therefore, the
grower will take particular pains to have the boxes well filled with
good berries and delivered promptly, in order to hold this trade. In
compensation he receives a good price, regular customers and a sure
market for his product.
The amount handled through the stores is about equal to that handled
direct to the consumer, but in some seasons it is not as great. The
grower demands cash, for he can get it at the other places, while most
of the stores prefer cash rather than a trade basis, on account of the
bother of handling the trade checks. Some stores, by offering a higher
trade price, try to draw trade, but this does not attract the commercial
grower. It may, however, attract the half-way grower. Most stores do not
try to handle more than they can dispose of themselves. It is the small
grower who sells to the stores. The large grower cannot get the prices
that will pay him to bother with the store trade, while the fruit houses
do not want to handle the small fruit grower's product, for it is
usually of inferior quality. Hence, the store trade is a necessity under
present conditions, even though it is not a very satisfactory method.
The apples are brought to the stores in the same packages as to the
consumer direct. The berries are handled in the same packages, but the
condition and quality are more apt to be inferior than with those sold
to the consumer. The stores usually re-sort the fruit before they sell
it. They very seldom ship fruit. In case they get more on their hands
than they can sell, they either store it for a few days, or sell to the
wholesale fruit houses.
There is more fruit handled by either one of the two wholesale fruit
houses than by any other single way in Mankato. They handle the bulk of
the apple crop grown commercially but will not take inferior fruit. The
small fruit growers market a considerable portion of their crops through
them, especially in years when they have more than they can dispose of
to consumers. The wholesale houses offer no fixed price, except it be in
a contract with some individual grower whom they know will bring in good
fruit. When a load comes in they look it over and bid on it. If the
grower is satisfied with the price, he sells, and if not he tries the
other house or the stores.
The commercial growers usually bring in their apples loose in the
wagon-box, and the apples are packed into barrels here. This insures a
clean barrel, properly packed. It enables the buyer to look over the
load as it is being unloaded. One or two growers have a reputation good
enough that the houses will buy their fruit barreled. All small fruits
are handled in the sixteen quart crates and are not repacked. The
grower delivers them as up to grade on his reputation, which will not
last long if he does not furnish good berries. The grower usually tells
the wholesaler when they were picked and the condition they are in. They
do a cash business only.
Very little has been handled through the commission men of other cities.
A few carloads have been shipped to Minneapolis, but returns were not as
satisfactory as when sold to the wholesale houses. In shipping the
grower has to take more risk and do more work, such as packing and
loading the car, than when he sells to the wholesaler. Most growers
prefer to sell to the houses than to do this extra work, which they are
neither used to, nor capable of handling. Besides this, most growers do
not have enough fruit at any one time to load a car.
There is no co-operative association at the present time, but the
growers were trying to organize one last winter. In a certain way there
is an agreement among the small fruit growers, in that nearly all of
them agree to market their fruit in the sixteen quart crate and stick to
certain prices as far as possible, and not to cut prices under other
growers. This applies especially to the "direct to the consumer" trade.
There are no street venders to whom the growers can sell nor with whom
they would have to compete, and there is no city market at Mankato.
Storage conditions have not been developed. The wholesale houses have
small storage rooms of their own, but do little storing of home grown
products, as they ship them out as soon as they get a carload. The
stores store a few days in case they get an over-supply on hand. The
growers store apples in their own cellars, often keeping them until the
following spring. A few city people buy apples in the fall and store for
winter use, but it is not very satisfactory for the storage houses do
not regulate the temperature accurately enough.
* * * * *