FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT. 97 



better to operate on a small scale and do it thoroughly than to under- 

 take something beyond your ability or means. 



All laud is not peach land, and it is useless to try to grow peaches 

 successfully unless j^ou have the right kind of soil and other favorable 

 conditions, and with these it is also useless unless you are prepared 

 to spray, cultivate, prune and thin properly — all this costs money and 

 a great deal of it, and requires much labor and that is not all the 

 story. When you have done all the needed things to produce a fine 

 crop of fruit, you Avill still fail of success if you do not properly grade 

 and pack j^our fruit. 



There never has been a time in the history of fruit growing in this 

 country when the absolute necessity for honest, uniform grading and 

 packing was so apparent. We have got to leave the "Culls" out of 

 the package. 



Every package of poor fruit that is allowed to go on the market re- 

 duces the price you are able to obtain for your good fruit, and it is 

 a mistaken idea for an}^ man to think that when he succeeds in selling 

 his inferior fruit, other than at the cider mill, evaporator or canning 

 factory, that he is ''just so much ahead." 



We can and do raise enough high grade fruit in this country every 

 year to supply all the demands, and each year the necessity of more 

 markets and better distribution is more apparent. 



All inferior fruit should go into by-products and none of it be packed 

 in baskets and barrels and thus go into consumption to the disgust of 

 many and satisfaction of a few. 



We are told that the peach contains a far greater per cent of sugar 

 than the beet and our scientific friends should tell us how to extract 

 this sugar. The very finest material for setting prints in fabrics manu- 

 factured abroad is obtained from dried fruits. 



These matters call for careful investigation. 



The grower must know when his fruit is ready to pick, and it must 

 be picked when it is ready, not before or two or three days after, but 

 just at the right time, or the returns will not be satisfactory as the 

 fruit will not carry properly, and there are so many peaches grown 

 nowadays that people do not have to buy imperfect fruit, and in any 

 case will not pay fancy prices for it. 



The growing of peaches when properly conducted is a business which 

 requires all the brains, all the patience, all the care and sometimes all 

 the money a man has, to carry it on successfully. 



The old idea that it took a "smart" man to be a lawyer, a doctor, or 

 a merchant, but that any fool could be a farmer has at last been ex- 

 |)loded, and in its place has come the realization that in the successful 

 farmer and fruit-grower must be combined the shrewdness of the law- 

 yer, the sympathetic insight of the physician, and the practical wisdom 

 and foresight of the merchant and manufacturer. 



To be a successful fruit-grower a man must know how to prune his 

 trees; how and when to spray them and how to thin whenever that is 

 necessary and advisable. He should know his soil and what it needs 

 to properly nourish and sustain the trees and mature the fruit. 



He should know the relative value of different varieties; their bear- 

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