FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT. 95 



r am fr;ink to adiiiii that whatever success T may have attained in 

 fruit gi'owiu«- has been due very largely to the fact that my orchards 

 are located in oue of the ujost favored sections of the United States, 

 along the southern shore of Lake Ontario, where soil and climatic 

 conditions are well-nigh perfect, and where the good old Lake tempers 

 the wind to the shorn trees in winter and stayes the icy fingers of Jack 

 Frost. 



For thirty years we have been favored and protected and during all 

 that time Ave have had but two failures of a crop and only three or 

 four years wlien the prices received were not pretty satisfactory and 

 even in those years the crop paid as well as any other on the farm, but 

 the past season brought to many a very rude awakening and removed 

 large quantities of conceit from some who had become convinced from 

 continued prosperity that their success was wholly due to their indi- 

 vidual wisdom. 



There are various 'Teach Problems," but we have reached the point 

 in our experience now, where the one great problem is hoiv to raise 

 peaches at a profit. Heretofore it has been a question of how much 

 profit, but the good old days are past and gone, and we are now face 

 to face Avith the question of making any profit at all. 



The majority of peach growers in the United States made no money 

 the past season and thousands of them actually would have been ahead 

 of the game had they not harvested a peach. Millions of bushels of 

 peaches rotted on the trees in this country the past season and the 

 situation Avill be the same next year providing there is a full crop in 

 all sections. 



Our only hope as peach growers now lies in the activities of Jack 

 Frost and disease. 



Three years ago I told the growers of New York state just what would 

 happen the first year we had a full crop in all sections of the country — 

 last year we had a failure almost complete, but this year we had a fine 

 crop and the most disastrous experience imaginable. 



There is no question Avhatever but that the Peach business has been 

 overdone. For the past ten or fifteen years the nurseries have been 

 unable to fill their orders for trees. 



It having been discovered that the Elberta peach would live and 

 thrive to a greater or less degree on almost any kind of soil, it has 

 been planted by the million in almost every state, with the result that 

 with a full crop over the country, the markets are glutted continu- 

 ously from July to November. 



It is more than a question of DISTRIBUTION now; it is equally 

 a question of high grade, standardized sorting and packing — of the most 

 efficient co-operation among the growers — central packing houses eco- 

 nomically operated^pre-cooling and first class refrigeration and trans- 

 portation — in other Avords, the application of the very best business 

 methods to our business from start to finish. 



I should certainly hesitate to take upon myself the responsibility of 

 advising or encouraging anyone to plant peach trees. The day of big 

 profits is past and gone — occasionally, if from 50% to 75% of the crop 

 happens to be destroyed throughout the sections of greatest produc- 



