FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT. 31 



Chairman: We will now hear from Mr. Thomas, from the southern 

 part of the State. 



Mr. Thomas: It seems to me that I am a little out of place and to l>e 

 called upon without warning reminds me of a story: A fellow who was 

 going along, came to a stream where he saw a boy struggling in the 

 Avater. When he helped him out, he asked, "how did you come to fall 

 in?" ''I did not come to fall in, I came to fish." 



That's my experience hei-e. Wiiile I am interested in fruit, I am mix- 

 ed up in all kinds of farming. We are on the dividing line of fruit 

 on one side and stock farming on the other. AYe began this spring in 

 our farming operation and everything for a time looked well. The first 

 shock was after the corn was planted it began to rain and we could 

 not cultivate it until it was six inches high. You know the results, it 

 was practically a failure. Then, along came the harvesting of the 

 wheat and we had it in the shock. I didn't care to have the threshing 

 dragging along Avhen taking care of the peaches, so I bought a thresher 

 machine intending to get my threshing out of the way in quick order. T 

 put my wheat into shock intending to thresh it out just as soon as it 

 was dry. But three davs after it was shocked it began to rain and it 

 rained and rained and we shocked that wheat over six times. The out- 

 side would be dry but the inside would be w^et and the wheat sprouted. 

 When we threshed that wheat we got only about 700 bushels and it 

 is of such a poor quality that we are using it for hog feed. Then the 

 early apples came on, they were beauties, but when I came to market 

 them as I have done in previous years, in the manufacturing towns in 

 Northern Indiana, — Michigan City, etc., — I could not get into South 

 Bend, because they have a commission house there that takes care of 

 all that place — I say when I made the trip that had been my method 

 of disposing of my early apples heretofore, I found that I could hardly 

 give them aAvay, and so did not attempt to dispose of any in this way 

 again. Many of the early apples staid on the trees and finally I was 

 able to dispose of them to peddlers, who took them at 15 to 20 cents a 

 bushel. Then peaches came along — we sold what we could and gave 

 the rest away. And in this we did better than some others. Many 

 came with cars and took them away. They bought them on the trees 

 for they looked much better there than after they were on the market, 

 because peaches did not hold up very well this year. They would not 

 stand shipping. Finally, on the late apples, I sold from 150 trees two 

 thousand dollars' worth. This helped out so that we had enough to 

 live on and see us through the winter. 



Chairman : We will now hear from Mr. Hall of Ionia. 



Mr. Hall: Mr. President, I was very much interested in Mr. Gar- 

 field's troubles — I want to call to mind the conditions that we used to 

 have and the conditions prevailing at the present time. Y^ou understand 

 that we are living in the shadow of two of your State institutions, the 

 criminally insane, and the intermediate. I think if you will just send 

 these lawless ])eople that he referred to up there they will get a disci- 

 pline that will do them some good. At least we are not troubled with 

 that kind of pilfering. We are glad to have them go into our orchards 

 and if they take any fruit we insist that they take the best. 



