Kennewick Berries Fetch Record Prices Despite Frosty Spring
The Kennewick Fruit Growers Association is shipping premium strawberries that command up to $15 a crate in Butte, $12.50 in Seattle, and $8.50 net—double last year's best.
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The strawberry season may now be said to be on in full blast. It has been considerably retarded this year by the cold backward spring. The weather, however, is not peculiar to the Kennewick valley, as reports from all over the northwest inform us that the most favored regions have suffered not only from backward growing weather but bad killing frosts. In this valley we have had some frost, it is true, but not to any great extent. Old timers who have watched weather conditions here for years say this is the most disagreeable spring they have known since 1894, and the only time since that year that frost has injured fruit crops at this time of the year.
It is estimated by those who have investigated the conditions that we will be able to ship in the neighborhood of 4500 crates of berries this spring, which is about half what was estimated earlier in the season. The berries that have been put on the market so far are of the very finest quality as is evidenced by the prices received on the open markets of our large cities. The following telegram from Butte, Mont., tells how Kennewick berries stand in that market:
Butte, Montana, May 10. Kennewick Fruit Growers Ass'n First three crates sold for forty-five dollars. Ryan & Newton
In the Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane markets as high as $12.50 per crate has been received. The Kennewick Fruit Grower's Association has shipped about fifty crates for which they have received net lower than $8.50 per crate, which price will hold till the Hood River crop comes in about the 25th of this month.
The officials of the Kennewick Fruit Grower's Association have handled the market very carefully and have arranged so that the berries will be so distributed that no one market will be overloaded and prices consequently injured. As an evidence of their wise stewardship we have the difference in prices for this year and last. Last year the highest price paid was $6 and this price was only good for a short time when it dropped to $3.50. The association has made the same arrangements for the handling of all kinds of later fruit and produce.
A trip through the valley shows that while the apricot and peach crops were considerably injured by the disagreeable weather this spring we will still have splendid crops.
“Last year the highest price paid was $6 and this price was only good for a short time when it dropped to $3.50.”
In 1905, Kennewick's fruit industry was booming, with careful market management helping local growers secure top dollar. Today, the region's agricultural roots run deep, and local farmers still battle weather and market fluctuations—though the prices and the stakes are much higher.
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