MARKETS FOR NORTHWEST FRUITS.

By A. T. HAWLEY.

The above caption suggests a subject of paramount importance to the horticulturists of the Northwest. The Rural Northwest, in its issue of May 1, 1892, contained an article from the pen of Mr. A. H. Carson, of Grants Pass, in which the "Science of Fruit Evaporation" is presented from an intelligent and thoroughly practical standpoint. Let me reproduce here Mr. Carson's primary proposition. He starts out by saying: "The area of country that can be made available for a market of green fruit on the Northwest Pacific Coast is large. But the great producing capacity of our orchards, now in bearing, and the young orchards that will come into bearing, in two or three years, will be such, that after supplying the demand for green fruit, we will have a large surplus to prepare and find a market for. The question now for us to discuss is, in what way shall we prepare this surplus so as to reach distant markets, at prices that will pay the producer?"

This is very well as far as it goes. But it hardly gives even a glimpse of the vast opportunities and possibilities in the direction hinted at. I had occasion some time since in the course of compiling data for letters written for the Board of Immigration of this city and published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Frank Leslie's Weekly, The American Farmer, and other leading Eastern journals, to look closely into the work of Oregon orchardists and nurserymen. I do not profess to be familiar with similar work in Washington. Three years ago, as one of the results of my investigations, I said in an article on this subject contributed to a local journal, referring to the recorded sale of peach pits by local firms to be planted for grafting stock of peaches, prunes, and plums, "allowing a loss from natural causes of one fifth of this immense planting it represents four million peach, plum, and prune trees to be added to the productive forces of this State within the next eight or ten years." This statement did not take into account the immense numbers of apple, pear, quince, and cherry trees which at that time were already planted in the orchards of Oregon, and to which constant additions are being made. Nor does it by any means include the immense number of plantings which have been made since the article quoted from was written. Seedsmen inform me that the sale of peach pits, instead of decreasing, increases from year to year. If we multiply

my estimate of four million peach, plum, and prune trees, made three years ago as the probable orchard growth of Oregon in the next eight or ten years, by three, or even by four, I do not think the estimate will be above the mark. It is more likely to be under it.

Can the importance of the problem as to where and how profitable markets can be found for the immense output of our orchards be over-estimated? There can be but one answer to this question, and that must be in the negative.

Premising that the establishment of permanent, satisfactory, and reasonably remunerative markets for our orchard products must absolutely hinge upon the excellence of our goods-upon their uniform excellence the question arises, Where are markets to be found? Let us look at the facts as they exist. It will do no good to shirk the recognition of existing facts. Up to within the past three or four years Oregon fruit-growers, even with the then sparse population of the Northwest, found little difficulty in disposing at fairly remunerative prices of their surplus crops. But the times change and circumstances change with them. Railroads have made us next-door neighbors to the States of the East, the West, and the South. Railroads have opened vast regions in those sections to the fruit growers which are admirably adapted to their purposes. The grape crop of New York is of greater pecuniary value than that of California, strange as it may seem. The peach crop of the region of the great lakes is challenging supremacy with those of New Jersey, Georgia, and other sections which once considered themselves masters of the situation. Middle and Northern Arkansas and portions of other Western States are coming to the front with apple orchards which not only rival but surpass the world in extent and productiveness, as well as character of product. Three years ago Charles Juste, a leading fruit dealer of California, said, "There is an imperative need of a market for California fruits." At the same time A. Lusk, whose name is familiar to every grower and dealer in fruits on this coast, said, "I know there is a sad need for a market for our fruits." Quite recently Wm. H. Mills, a tireless and energetic worker in advancing the pomological as well as all other interests of California, finding the need of more extended markets imperative and challenging immediate attention, put forth feeler" in the direction of establishing, in addition to the quick time fruit trains between San Francisco and New York and Chicago now running, similar quick time fruit trains between San Francisco and St. Paul, Minneapolis, Omaha City, St. Louis, Denver, and, in fact, all cities, including the smaller ones, on the route from the West to the East. The experiment of rapid transit from the Pacific Ocean to the great European centers is now being made. Our

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readers will see at a glance that the question of "Markets for our fruit" is "a burning one." It is time for the Northwest to be up and doing in this direction. It is time, high time, to take a calm, cool, dispassionate, determined view of the question, and more than that, to take action. Supremacy, equality, even, in the great contest, is not to be won without prompt, persistent, intelligent effort. Set that down as a foregone conclusion. We may sit like Jack o'dreams and prate till the world's end about the fertility of our soil, the excellence of our products, the size and lusciousness of our peaches and prunes, the gleam and glimmer of "the big red Oregon apple," but as sure as you are born, "chin music" won't bring the markets of the world to our doors. An old proverb is to the effect that everything comes to him who waits.

This may be a rule, but there is no rule without an exception, and in this case the exception is at hand. It is a palpable entity, as much so as a wart on a man's nose. It cannot be brushed away like a fly on the rim of a tumbler. It is here to stay, to challenge scrutiny, to suggest action.

This action must take many shapes; travel and display of goods and wares, which will cost money, and for which perhaps, indeed most likely, no immediate return can be expected; that honest and honorable local and State and commercial pride, which will be content with nothing short of a profit to the buyer, whether he is found at the East, or in Europe, or Asia, or the Isles of the Sea, of first-class goods, true to the label and of uniform excellence in the package, top, bottom, and sides; and this action should take further the shape of coöperation among fruit growers on the part of whom there should be rigid insistence upon fair dealing upon the part of fruit canner, fruit dryer, and fruit packer. There should be a league among the fruit growers on this particular basis so strong that no one of them all would dare to bring reproach upon this section by putting a poor quality of fruit upon the market. In this direction, and this alone, lies the hope of either supremacy or equality in the markets of the world. The few tens of thousands of tons of fruit now harvested annually in the United States are but as the dust in the balances to the products in the near future of the orchards now planted and yet to be planted. There is no use gainsaying this fact, and out of this significance grows the all-important significance of the subject of "Market for our fruits." We have a population of sixty millions and more of souls now, and already, with the comparatively small area planted in fruit, the question of "markets” for our orchard products is pressing upon us.

Judging by the work done in this direction in Oregon alone, the acreage in fruit is increasing in a ratio greater than the increase in

population. Such being the case, the question of "Markets for our fruit" addresses itself with clyconic force to the intelligence and enterprise of the fruit growers. Intelligence and enterprise can find a satisfactory answer to the question, at some present cost perhaps, but with liberal remuneration for the future. But supine waiting for the verification, in this case, of the wise saw, "Everything comes to him who waits," will result in a dead, unhappy failure. To be up and doing is the need of the hour.

In the consideration of this subject, one of paramount importance, it must be apparent that it is absolutely necessary, in order to arrive at any just or satisfactory conclusion in the premises, to take as comprehensive a glance as possible at not only what has been done, but at whatever has been suggested in the direction of finding a market for the surplus fruits of the Northwest.

Assuming, therefore, that something, even if not a very great deal, has been accomplished in the way of introducing our fruits, green, (or, more properly speaking, ripe as they are taken from the tree,) dried, canned, and preserved, although not half has been done that could and ought to have been done in the markets of the United States, let us look at the suggestion of localities into which these fruits may in time and ought to be introduced.

First, as to Asiatic countries, China, Japan, and others. There have been some few shipments to China via the defunct Upton line of steamers. It is unpleasant to record the fact, but I am reluctantly forced to confess that attempts upon my part to obtain satisfactory data upon which to base reliable conclusions as to success and profit of such shipments have been baffling, to state the case mildly. Still, on general principles, it may be stated that the attempts to establish a trade in apples, more especially with those countries, would not have been made if the inducements held out had not been sufficient to warrant the experiment, and it is not unreasonable to infer that given reliable and reasonably rapid means of transportation to those countries there is in the futureperhaps the near future-the promise of reasonable profits to the orchardist who grows good, clean, merchantable fruit, and prepares it attractively for the buyer.

In this connection it may be remarked that a few weeks ago a writer stated in a letter to a Pacific Coast journal that, having recently dined at a table of some Japanese gentlemen of high rank, he was agreeably surprised to note that as the crowning delicacy of the feast the guests were asked to partake of canned California peaches, pears, etc., and that they were brought to the table with much pride, pomp, and circumstance of display as a luxury. The fruit-grower of the Northwest may, and should, if he is wise, regard

this incident as full of encouragement to the man who is now engaged or who may hereafter engage in the work of an orchardist on correct principles. For, once let the swarming myriads of those regions become innoculated with a taste for Pacific Coast fruits and the demand therefor will mean remunerative markets "beyond the dreams of avarice."

The suggestions, however, are valuable only as containing within themselves the germ and promise of hope and value for the future, but nevertheless should be filed away for reference. The person doing so should not forget to keep a weather eye upon the developments of trans-Pacific steamship lines, for therein may lie the secret of great rewards.

It has been suggested that at some time our Australian brethren may become customers for our fruits. It will not do to build up any extravagant hopes in this direction. In the California Fruit Grower, of October 8th, I find a resume of the estimates of 79 fruit growers, representing 1,130 acres of orchards in one section of Australia, that of Angostan, from which it appears that apricots, peaches, pears, plums, apples, nectarines, quinces, cherries, berries of all kinds, and tropical fruits, oranges, lemons, figs, walnuts, and almonds are successfully grown there. Another writer, on the same subject, says: "In the markets of Brisbane, Australia, great quantities of fruit are said to be given away daily to the street Arabs by the marketmen who prefer that means of disposing of their surplus stock to the trouble of hauling it home again, or the more selfish method pursued in San Francisco of dumping the unsold overplus into the bay." It seems evident that the Brisbaneists have not yet learned the knack of canning or drying their fruit, but they will do so, and that from their own neighbors, for within a short time the California State Board of Horticulture received a loud call from the Australian Board for a man thoroughly conversant with the art of canning and drying fruit, and able to travel about the country and by public speaking instruct the people in this important industry. Manifestly, we of the Northwest, are not to look to Australian neighbors for purchasers of our orchard products.

But west of us, across at least a portion of the waters of the great ocean which lies at our very doors, there is a vast, a practically untouched, so far as we are concerned, region which I think contains within itself the potency of great rewards to the Northwest fruitgrower. At a convention of the National Board of Trade Association held in Washington, D. C., in July, 1892, Mr. J. A. Hazeltine, of this city, read a paper in the course of which he said (his subject being the importance of our Government fostering the trade of the United States with the Asiatic countries and the Isles of the Sea):