G. Harold Powell was born to a Quaker family on February 8, 1872, grew up in the Hudson Valley of New York on his father's apple farm . After graduating from The Union Free High School, he worked his way through Cornell University, where he studied horticulture. In 1901 Powell joined the newly created Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Plant Industry in Washington D.C. as a pomologist. At this time the California citrus empire stretched eastward from Santa Barbara County through portions of Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino counties to Riverside. California citrus growers had for years been suffering very high losses from the decay of their fruit on trains crossing the continent. In dire need of help, the growers had been sending request after request to Washington for Federal aid in a desperate effort to solve the problem. Often by the time the trains reach the east cost 25 percent of the oranges had decayed, causing the growers large financial losses. Growers blamed the infertility of the soil, poor tree stock, the degeneracy of older trees, weakness in the fruit when picked, damage of some sort in the packing houses, or delays for the freight trains. Finally in 1904 the Agricultural Department dispatched Powell west, and the " Powell Era" began. The citrus growers, who called themselves horticulturists in the city directories, were the elite of society, but new little about proper harvesting methods, and post harvest care. Many of the growers were wealthy, confident gentlemen from New England, the Middle Atlantic states, and Middle American, who came west to retire, or were seeking health. G. Harold Powell was the right man in the right place at the right time. Oranges are not pig iron, he said, not objects to being dropped like cannon balls . Right away Powell made changes. Growers needed to pay laborers by the day, not by the box. This would keep them from rushing through the pick in an effort to make as much money as possible. Paying by the day would avoid much of the damage to the fruit. The growers needed to buy, or build better equipment, and start using cutters with dull tips, instead of the normal sharp pointed pruners that often caused punctures in the rind. Further, Powell told the growers to have their harvesters pick with soft gloves. After seeing damage in the packing houses, Powell and his men went to the Redlands Orange Growers packing House on March 14, 1907 and carefully packed 5 boxes of fruit, wrapped and nailed the lid shut. Also a box of fruit with tiny clipper cuts and stem punctures was packed in a separate box. Two weeks later on March 27th, the time it took the trains to deliver shipments to the East Coast, the boxes were opened. Powell opened very box, counted and examined every orange. Powell's five boxes averaged 1.7 percent decay, and the box with clipper cuts damaged by mold reached 63 percent. A couple days later the headlines in the Redland Daily Review stated: 'Nine Tenths of Decay Due to Mechanical Injury". In 1909 The Department of Agriculture sent Powell, with a staff of six experts, to continue the studies of decay in lemons, and other California fruit. After leaving Federal employment in 11911 he moved permanently to South Pasadena. He served briefly as secretary and general manager of the Citrus Protective League in Los Angeles. A year later in 1912 he became the general manager of the California Fruit Growers Exchange, now known as Sunkist, a position he held until 1922. Under him, the Exchange became the most famous and studied fruit farmers' business organization in the entire world. July 1917 President Herbert Hoover put Powell in charge of the Perishable Foods Division of the Food Administration. He also was appointed by the Governor of California to head a commission to study American agricultural colleges, which led to the reorganization of the agricultural college at the University of California at Davis. In 1922 at the National Agricultural Conference, called by President Harding he served as chairman of the committee on the marketing of farm produce. He played an active part in the agricultural economics, and because of his efforts led a boom in California citrus land and labor productivity. Powell was so successful that within four years his recommendations had saved growers from losses in the million dollars a year, and was eulogized for launching "the Powell era". On February 18, 1922, when he was barely fifty years old, he attended a public dinner at the Hotel Maryland in Pasadena. There at the table he fell dead of a heart attack. A month after Powell's death, on March 20, 1922 a long special memorial service took place in the Morosco Theater, Los Angeles. The audience heard impressive eulogies from every important person in the citrus industry. Two officials had come from Washington, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of Commerce. A year later, inside the entrance hall of the Department of Agricultural Administration Building, former members of the division of Perishable Foods placed a bronze memorial to Powell that reads--"G. Harold Powell Agricultural Economist Public Servant. (Taken from the book Letters From The Orange Empire ) - Millet (1,387-)
