THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 7, 1922
THE PRESIDENT: I am going to ask Dr. Taylor to present his paper now, if he will please.
PROF. RALPH H. TAYLOR: Through a previous arrangement with our secretary I had assigned to me an entirely different subject from that on the printed programme, "The Use of Nuts the Year Around." I have prepared a paper on the original subject and so I will proceed to deliver it in accordance with my arrangement with him.
I do, however, want to say first, in connection with the use of nuts the year around, that we from California are vitally interested in that problem. I know of no problem that faces us more at the present time than the one of marketing the product that we grow in competition with the tremendously increasing imports from abroad, brought in from countries where labor costs anywhere from twenty to fifty cents a day, and at the highest a dollar a day for what they call skilled labor, most of it twenty to fifty cents, and with freight rates across the Atlantic that amount to less than half of our freight rates, or one-quarter of them. With the commodity in the hands of speculators who are able in various ways to make tremendous profits, and giving the public none of the benefit of these conditions, we find it almost impossible to market our product at a profit. We must get it into the hands of the consumer cheaply. We are endeavoring to do it. One of the plans is to encourage the use of nuts the year around, and the California Almond Growers' Association, whom I represent, are planning now to shell their own almonds and put the kernels up in vacuum packages, both tin and glass, and make it possible for the housewife, instead of going to the candy stores and buying salted almonds for a dollar to a dollar and a quarter once or twice a year, to secure her own almonds, blanch them herself and use them considerably more often because she can get them cheaper. We believe it is going to be worth while for us to go into the business the year around. The demand at the present time is for almonds for a brief period up to the first of January. Thereafter there is no sale until the following November. Under those conditions you can see that with increasing crops we are facing difficulties that are almost insurmountable. Therefore we are changing the form in which we are marketing part of our crop. I want to say to those people who do recognize the value of almonds for food that it is going to be possible for you to secure them in a most desirable form, clean, wholesome and absolutely fresh, as almonds packed in vacuum. They will be just as fresh as when they are put in from the orchards of California.