The Wholesaler Tells the Growers the Truth: 'We Don't Love You'

An impromptu address delivered by R. Merchant at the monthly meeting of the King County Horticultural Society.

It is hardly worth while for me to address you after you have been so ably entertained by Mr. Brown, Judge McGilvra and others, but I cannot resist the opportunity to put in a word in behalf of the wholesalers referred to by Judge McGilvra. I have been in the wholesale fruit and produce business in Seattle for the past 16 years, as some of you in this audience know, and my long experience with the trade of this state has taught me some ideas that might be of use to any one proposing to make fruit growing a business.

DOES NOT LOVE US.

In the first place, don't think for a moment that any wholesaler cares for you or your interests whatever. What do I or my firm care for you farmers? We have troubles enough of our own. When a commission man or wholesaler tells you he is working for the interests of the farmer or producer he is simply giving you tally-ho to catch your shipments and nothing more. We are all after the Almighty Dollar, and if you put up your fruits or produce in first-class merchantable shape then you are looked after and wanted by the commission man. Why? Because he can handle your shipments and make money on them. Not because he cares for your interests or loves you, for there is no such thing as friendship or love in business transactions any more. Pick your fruits right, pack them right, and get them to market in first-class shape and you will have plenty of friends, while your fruit or money lasts. You can brag on your own particular invention of a new potato till you are blind, and while you are thus trying to teach the "dear public" what a wonderful discovery you have nursed from some one potato you by accident secured, I will sell ten tons of good, smooth, white, clean Burbanks, and simply tell you I have no time to devote telling every person wanting potatoes your little song and dance.

No, gentlemen, times are not like they were 16 years ago, when I once handled for two or three seasons all the berries from Lake Washington (and that was about all that came to Seattle), and secured an average from 35 to 60 cents per gallon for the whole crop, and returned the old split-out cedar boxes to you farmers.

You have now to compete with California and Oregon, where they have a farming country and raise large acreage and pack their berries nice and uniform in every basket, in uniform crates, uniform weights — every crate alike, every square of butter the same color, the same taste; no matter how many cases we get, they are to be depended on for size, so many layers, so many tiers of apples to the box, etc. And when a restaurant wants a case of butter from us, he wants a nice, uniform color, in uniform squares, so he can cut it for the table. He wants a 4 or 5-tier box of apples so he can figure how many in the box and how many he will need for a meal. And we dealers don't care what your troubles were or the cause was, that you bring your apples in scabby, imperfect, or in rough, split-out boxes. We want what the trade demands, and must have it; and if you don't cater to the demands of the trade, then no wonder the experienced California packer, the trained shipper, the man with a keen eye, gets in and knocks you old mossback kickers out. I tell you the shrewd, sharp Yankee farmer of the West must wake up. Get your land planted with the choicest varieties, best grades, and above all, pick carefully, pack well in uniform, neat packages, and get your produce to market in first-class style, and you will never be wanting for a market, nor will you have any cause to kick at California fruits interfering with your sales; for California can only ship against its equal, in the early season before you get to market, for with an equally well-packed article, in equal packages, you have the best of him both with freshness and a good margin in the shape of freight.

Now Judge McGilvra wants the ranchers to peddle vegetables and fruits to his door. Well, we don't object to that, neither do commission men — if the ranchers would only have and hold to uniform and living prices. But one brings in his truck in decent shape and a decent article, and on his next trip around he finds some one who has been over his route with a poorer article in not so neat shape, and cut prices to correspond and unload; and the fact is that one rancher is all the time cutting the throats of another, while the commission men are having no trouble in selling at all times the good, well-packed produce from the live, wide-awake farmer, at good prices, and all the while is being cursed and abused by the jim crow rancher that has, by accident, missed his calling and is trying to farm it.

NOT ALL DEALERS ARE WICKED.

Of course, all callings have their good and bad. We have this in all business.