President's Annual Address. 11 



which does not protect." But the tariff embarrasses trade. Many liinderances 

 and losses occur on account of it, and the amount of the tax paid to the gov- 

 ernment is simply added to the cost of the article and is finally paid by the 

 consumer. There is another way in which it affects us as producers unfa- 

 vorabl}'. The imposition of this tax by our government has induced the 

 Canadian government to impose a similar one about twice as large upon all 

 horticultural products imported from the United States. It is said that these 

 duties would not be maintained long after they were repealed on ovir side. 

 We export far more fruit to the Canadas than we import from them. And 

 yet the duty against us gives the Canadian jiroducer no protection, for the 

 moment when his crops are ready for the market, our exportation ceases, ac- 

 cording to the natural laws of trade. But the producers of the entire coun- 

 try find this tariff troublesome and burdensome. At the last meeting of this 

 Society, in Chicago, in September last, I brought this subject to the attention 

 of members, and resolutions favoring the repeal of our tariff on all horticul- 

 tural products of Canadian growth were unanimously passed, and a commit- 

 tee was appointed to go before the Tariff Commission, then in session in the 

 city, and present the case to them. This was done. Your committee seemed 

 to carry the conviction of the gentlemen of the commission, and I observe 

 that their report to Congress placed all fruits on the free list, excepting cer- 

 tain kinds of a semi-tropical character. This matter will, in time, come be- 

 fore Congress for action, and I trust that every member of this Society will 

 use his influence to have the report of the Tariff Commission in this particu- 

 lar sustained. 



BUREAU OF HORTICULTURAL STATISTICS. 



The system of trade in orchard and garden products, which is rapidly 

 growing, with the expansion of our railway interests, has already assumed 

 great proportions. Every day in the year the tides of horticultural com- 

 merce are ebbing or flowing over the great area of our country. Car loads 

 and train loads of our various produce begin to move northward every year 

 with the opening spring, over our leading lines of railway, and this contin- 

 ues with the advancing season until the time arrives for the great current to 

 set the other way. Hundreds of thousands of our people are directly en- 

 gaged in producing or in the distribution of the great harvests of horticul- 

 ture. And yet no man concerned in this vast production and traffic is guided 

 in his operations by any such carefully compiled knowledge of the changing 

 facts he is dealing with, as the merchant in cotton or the manufacturer of 

 iron would consider of prime importance to an enlightened management. 

 We have no system of collecting the statistics of our business, such as other 

 industries employ. Are they not equally important? We should know the 

 amount of annual planting of berries and vegetables, and the acreage of or- 

 chard and vineyard, and the condition and promise of all of these crops^ 

 throughout our entire valley not only, but throughout the whole country. 

 Without this knowledge we constantly work in the dark. Every producer 

 who has sought to plant with some reference to the probable demands of his 



