FORTY- FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT. 29 



that wc have before us aiul while we Jire doing this may we feel con- 

 scious of Thy Holy Spiiil. May we learn of Thee, to understand more 

 clearly our duties and our relationships to each other. Grant that Ihese 

 times of fellowship together may be spent truly as though in Thy 

 service; that we may be better men and better women; that we may 

 learn the golden rule in loving our neighbor as our self. 



To this end that Thou wouldst bless the officers of this society and 

 all those who attend so that when we go to our homes it will be with 

 the feeling and thought of what a good time we have had. We ask it 

 all for Jesus' sake. Amen. 



Chairman ; This has been an unusual season for farmers and. espe- 

 cially for fruit growers. There have been many experiences not counted 

 on at the beginning of the year. There have been disappointments and 

 losses that we did not anticipate. Out of these experiences there are 

 lessons to be learned and we thought it would be very appropriate 

 for us to have an experience meeting to start with. I will call on Mr. 

 Garfield of Grand Rajtids, for his experience. 



Mr. Garfield: I do not, Mr. President, know whether any experience 

 I have had will be of any value, but I can perhaps say some things that 

 you all know, and you can nod your approval. ' One is that a good deal 

 of the fruit of the past season, owing to its peculiarity, has been lacking 

 in quality. I tried all the season through to find a canteloupe that 

 really tasted good and failed clear up to the last. I suppose that this 

 which is a semi-tropical vegetable, may have been affected worse than 

 many other things. But it was true also of tomatoes that grew in the 

 open. The same variety of tomato that I have thought was of excep- 

 tional quality this year certainly was lacking in quality. 



A little experience that is common most of the years, has come to 

 me this year. The fences on my orchard have been taken away because 

 we put a road through it, but I have been pestered by people particu- 

 larly with the early variety of apples, who came up Avith automobiles, 

 and would drive in under a tree and shake the fruit right off the tree 

 into the automobile and then skite ofi" with their booty. I have had 

 more of this miserable kind of petty-thieving this year than usual. You 

 would think that anybody who was able to own an automobile ought to 

 be willing to pay for the little fruit desired. I do not mean to be petty 

 about these things. I am glad to have anybody go through the orchard 

 and pick an apple to eat and put one in his pocket, but when they 

 come to shaking the trees of their fruit into the automobile and drive 

 off without saying a word it seems to me that this is a little more than 

 is just. Those who have orchards near the city are pestered most in 

 this way. 



The eliminating of this is largely a matter of education. People have 

 not got used to the fact that a thing need not be fenced in to give us 

 the title to it. When things are all open the people are more apt to 

 take advantage than otherwise. I used to plant wild flowers along 

 the border of ray place, under the shrubs; but for a while because they 

 were in the road, the people seemed to think that they did not belong to 



