JAPANESE STRAWBERRY FARMERS TO ORGANIZE
Complete Change in Methods of Aliens Who Control Industry on Vashon Island Result of Bad Season.
J.P. POWLES CHOSEN AS ASSOCIATION MANAGER
Orientals Hereafter Will Follow Up-to-Date Rules in Planting, Cultivating and Marketing Fruit.
Complete reorganization of the strawberry industry of Vashon Island will be completed next Wednesday, when the Berry Growers Union of Vashon Island will be formed and articles of incorporation filed. The forty-five Japanese producers on the island, who suffered disaster the past season, due to unseasonable rains and poor management, will undertake to recoup their losses next year, adopting modern methods of finance and management, and better standards of cultivation and production.
The new organization, a result of the work of several prominent Seattle Japanese business men, will be an exclusively Japanese organization, although J.B. Powles, a well known Seattle commission merchant, will be its manager. Under Powles' direction, a superintendent will be employed who will direct the work of planting and cultivation this winter and will superintend the picking, packing, and marketing next.
Japanese Have Control.
The Japanese heretofore have controlled 80 per cent of the island strawberry production. The hard luck they suffered the past season has forced them into the new organization and the plan is to pool the product of the berry gardens and market them next year through Seattle commission houses.
Powles said today that whereas last year and the year before the island growers received from 80 cents to $1.06 a crate, will even better results in 1909, the average net return last season was only 40 cents a crate. He also said that the white berry growers would be invited to form an association and cooperate with the new organization.
A new variety of berry, especially suited to this climate, has been discovered by Powles and will be planted on Vashon Island. The berry bears the name "Klondike" and keeps longer and is finer looking than any of the old varieties.