Branding the Valley: Why Yakima Fruit Needs a Label

I wish to call the attention of the fruit growers of the Yakima valley to a matter which many of them are overlooking this season, and that is the fact of having their names on all boxes of fruit shipped by them. While doing some marketing in Seattle this morning, I saw some fine looking peaches wrapped in small pieces of newspaper. Both the fruit and the paper looked familiar, so I asked the grocer the price of the peaches and was informed that they were Walla Walla peaches at ten cents per pound, while the California peaches alongside of them were three pounds for two-bits. On picking up one of the former, I found it wrapped with a paper, on which was the line 'The Yakima Herald', although there was no sign on the box to indicate whether it came from Yakima, Mukilteo or Lapland. If a person who has not lived in Yakima should purchase any of them and find how superior they were to any other in this market, he would have gone back and asked for Walla Walla peaches, and Yakima would have received no credit. A stencil, a pot of lampblack and a brush would cost about the price of a box of peaches, and every farmer who raises fruit for market can afford to have one. If the growers themselves will not attend to this matter, let the commission men or middlemen procure a stencil and see to it that all fruit shipped from North Yakima has the name of the town on the box. It would pay as an advertisement of the town and country, as every box so marked would be an object lesson when opened in a market like this.