The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 30, 1917, Page 5

*prove” that three year old trees would grow big crops. It was a three-year old tree, all right. I talked with the photographer who took the picture. The only trouble was that the apples didn't grow on this tree. They were taken from an older tree and tied onto the three-year-old tree with thread, The testimony of the photographer, John G. Showell, is a matter of court record. Just to show the kind of a fake that the land sharks were working on the -easterners, to make them believe there was big money in the apple growing game, I got a copy of .this picture and it is repro- duced with this article. The company went through a receiv- ership in 1907 and changed its name to the Bitter Root Valley Irrigation com- pany. This enab- led an inside bunch of land sharks to get con- trol. ‘This bunch went on with its sales, selling alto- gether about 20,- 000 acres of land. They spent money with a lavish hband. Then something dropped. It would take too much space, to tell everything that happened, but the company is in bankruptcy now, with debts amounting to $4,- 186,000 ° and - the courts are still trying to find out what became of the - money that they took in. The company contracted with” the. purchasers to turn over five- year-old orchards, which were sup- posed to be bear- ing on a commer- - cial basis. Going into bankruptey it couldn’'t be com- pelled to fill its contracts. Today, in the Bitter Root valley, there are thousands of acres of apple orchards with the trees dead or dying for lack of attention, the lands foul with weeds which are growing higher than the trees. A few purchasers who had @ little money left, came out to the Bitter Root and are trying to take care of their property and save some- thing from the wreck, but more are jus t pocketing their losses, which amount in ‘the aggregate to millions.: SOMETIMES GET GOST OF PRODUCTION However, there are a great many orchardists of the valley, who were not stung by the land sharks’ game, who #re growing apples and getting good crops. The Mackintosh Red is the favorite apple of the valley and thous- ands of boxes are raised annually. It is in trying to sell them at a profit that the growers have their hard work. Roughly, it costs from 60 to 75 cents to produce a box of extra fancy Mackin- tosh Reds. The growers generally get a net price of from 50 cents to $1 a box. If they only get 50 cents, of course, they lose money. If they get $1, which comparatively few do, they make a little, \ The worst of it is that these apple growers see these same apples sold at retail in the Dakotas or even in the eastern part of Montana, for prices ranging from $2 to $3.50 per box. Most of the apple growers sell their produce through commission houses. The commission men are supposed to charge only 5 per cent, but the apple growers claim to have evidence that many of them, through conspiracy with each other and selling from one com- raission man to another, are able to - falsify their books and steal enormous sums. I talked to Charles N. Madeen, a Missoula lawyer, who went into the apple raising game when he first came to the Bitter Root valley, leasing 14 acres of bearing orchard. He paid $400 rent. The first year he paid wages for having most of his work done and lost $2G0 at the end of the year. The second year he got along without hired help and was able to break just a little better than even. Madeen peddled some of his apples on the streets of Missoula for 25 cents a box. He sent one shipment of 18 boxes to a Butte commission house, ex- pecting to make better than 25 cents a box, anyhow. FOUND ONLY ONE MAN MAKING MONEY At the end of a month he got back a bill from the commission man for $1.90. The apples hadn’t paid the cost of freight, the commission man said. At about the same time Madeen made a shipment to another Butte commis- sion man and netted 50 cents a box on his apples. At the end of two years he got oul of the game, though he really wanted to stick to it. I talked to just one apple grower who said he was able to make money on his orchard. This was S. J. Bischoff, of Missoula. who owns the Allomont or- chard, at Lolo, And Bischoff, who said he was able to make money because he was much more fortunately situated than most of the growers, was just as sure as ‘any of the others that the marketing conditions were all- wrong. Bischoff owns a 40-acre orchard, one of the largest. It is 14 years old, the oldest commercial orchard in the val- ley. He has been in operation $o ‘long that his orchard has built up a reputa- tion and he is able to sell direct'to re- tail firms in the eastern half of the state, Also 'his warehouse is directly on'the rajlroad, which cuts out an expense of $20 to $40 per car for hauling that the other growers have to face. Bischoff sells most of his apples for $1 per box, he said. Aside from the year-around labor of cultivating and irrigating, his picking costs 4 cents a box, his pack- At Seattle, where publicly-owned cold storage warehouses are operated, a Washington apple grower can store his apples and borrow money at 6 per cent interest on his storage certificate. If the state of Montana should do something of this kind, wouldn’t it help the apple pro- ducer some? He wouldn’t have to turn his crop over immediately to the commission man to get money enough to pay running expenses. Hundreds of acres of apple trees in the Bitter Root valley are being pulled out to make room for hay growing. Thousands of boxes of apples are left on the trees or are fed to hogs, because the product can not be sold at a profit under present marketing conditions. Other thousands of acres are left uncared for, although they represent investments running up into the millions of dollars. ing 8 or 9 cents (other growers who have smaller orchards have to pay 10 cents) and the boxes cost 14 to 15 cents. This makes a total cost of 30 cents a box, besides the year-around labor of keeping up the farm and the interest on his investment. Bischoff was in Billings the other day and saw some of the apples that he had sold for $1 on display in a retail store. They were marked $2, The freight rate from Missoula to Billings is 63 cents per 100 pcunds, or 311 cents on a 50-pound box of apples. The production of the apples cost Bischoff about 60 cents, making his profit 40 cents on the box. The retail dealer made a profit of 79 cents on the box. But this is a very small margin com- pared to the profit that is taken on Irrigation ditch constructed by Bitter Root Valley Irrigation company, bringing water from Lake Como to irrigate the or- chards of the valley. most of the apples, which pass through the hands of more than one middleman. I talked to C. H. Stanchclift, another orchardist, who had sold some Mackin- tosh Reds for $1 a box. His son saw the same apples at Roundup, Mont., on sale for $3.50, The freight rate between. Missoula and Roundup is 75 cents per 100 pounds on léss than carload ship- ments, or 37% cents per box. . The rest of the $2.50 difference between $1 and $3.50 represents middlemen’s profits. PRICES BEYOND THE CONSUMERS “The fact of the matter,” said Mr. Stanchclift, “is that apples are priced - 80 high that the average consumer can’t afford to buy them. That makes the demands so light that we can't af- ford to keep on producing at the prices we are getting for them.” Stanchclift, who has a comparatively small orchard, sells most of his apples now in the city of Missoula. He has built up a clientele of his own by news- paper advertising and is able to sell his crop at fairly remunerative rates. But the Missoula demand isn’t large enough for nearly all the product of PAGE FIVE the Bitter Root valley, so most of the producers have to deal through com- mission men. Stanchclift, while he was engaged in ranching on the Indian reservation, had ‘some experiences with commission men. One commission man promised to get him $1 a box for his Wealthy apples, another popular variety. So Stanchclift sent'in a consignment of 170 boxés. The commission man first took out 30 boxes which he said were culls and allowed Stanchclift 20 cents a box for these. Then he sold the rest, making returns that showed sale at 55 cents a box. He took out 10 cents of this for packing and his 5 per cent commission. The boxes cost a little more than 10 cents apiece. As it costs 60 to 75 cents to produce a box of apples you can figure how the grower came out. Hundreds of in- stances might be given of how the apple growers have had dealings with commission men and have come out second best. A few years ago the apple pro- ducers tried to better their con- dition by volun- tary co-operation. The North Pacific Fruit Dirstribu- tors company was organized. Each of the Northwestern states had its own agency, which was a branch of the North Pacific or- ganization, the Montana. branch being known as the Montana Fruit Distributors. The organization took in growers and and a large por- tion of the Bitter But voluntary co-operation has not worked, so the Bitter Root . men tell me. Mr. Bis- choff, whom I went in with the Distributors. At the end of a year he found his returns .were less than they had been before, so he dropped’ out. So did a good many of the other larger orchardists, who had large enough production so that they could market their own produycts directly. This -left the smaller orchardists to struggle along as best they might. Recently the government bureau of markets has been attempting to breathe some new life into the co-operative plan by working out an information service. But most of the producers think there is something wrong with the scheme. They don’t like the idea of the shippers, who are middlemen, and the growers, being affiliated in the same organization. They say this was tried by the orange growers of.Califor- nia and they found it didn’t work. It would take too long to go into all the objections against the scheme, but the .plain fact is that at least insofar as the Bitter Root Valley growers are con- cerned, the voluntary co-operation plan hasn’t worked. The marketing prob- lem is still a long way from being solved. DISSATISFIED WITH STATE DEPARTMENT The state of Montana has a horticul-~ tural department. Its work, like those of most state departments, is devoted principally to securing larger and bet- ter crops, to controlling disease, and so forth, and not toward solving the real problem of the apple grower. This is just the same as the problem of the wheat grower—how to dispose of his product at a profit, D In fact the horticultural department is the subject of a good deal of criti- _cism by Montana fruit growers. It threw out théusands of boxes of, apples last year and previous years on account of the presence of tiny patches of scab. This is a disease that affects only the (Continued on Page 14) - shippers together Root men joined.' mentioned, was "’ one of those who