350 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



us, and no place is surer of a crop. Every year we see more and more of combinations, 

 trusts, and aggregations of capital to control different kinds of products and keep up 

 the price. There is the barbedvvire trust, the twine trust, the sugar trust (that last 

 year, on a capitalization of stock of forty-nine millions paid over ten per cent. — over 

 four million nine hundred thousand dollars— in dividends), and so down through the 

 whole alphabet, nearly, you see combinations to corner the market and keep up prices. 

 Almost every kind of business, except agriculture, horticulture, and similar callings, 

 are combining and controlling the men engaged therein, to make it more profitable; 

 but the farmer, the fruitgrower, goes it alone, and he is fighting for dear life with 

 apparently the rest of the world against him. 



Well, now, there is no doubt that these trusts are bad for the country. The Stand- 

 ard Oil company and kindred combinations are accumulating untold, unearned, 

 undeserved millions by means of united action of the men engaged in these enterprises. 

 It is wrong to " corner " and combine to force the price of the necessary articles of life, 

 and it was a crime to do so in England, by the common law, over 150 years ago. But 

 what are you going to do? Must men lie down and be driven over and ground into 

 the dust? Why not combine, for self-protection, all the fruit men of Michigan — yes, 

 all the fruit men in the country — in one gigantic organization, build here in Michigan 

 cold-storage houses, have your officers, agents, and managers, and make the most of 

 your fruit crop? 



Western Michigan men can control the apple and peach market of the west. Now, 

 we raise each a few barrels of fruit, and as soon as picked we rush it into the market 

 and take what we can get. If the apple-growers of this country, this fall, had been 

 united and owned and controlled sufficient cold-storage capacity to keep the apple crop, 

 the growers would have doubled their money. Union is strength; the single, delicate 

 ■wire, that can be broken by the single arm of man, when united with its fellow- wires 

 supports the Brooklyn bridge. So the united efforts of man will produce more than 

 single efforts. 



I offer this suggestion for your serious consideration and action. I have often 

 wondered at another thing, when I have seen carload after carload of fruit trees come 

 into our county from the east. I have asked myself, can't better ones be raised in 

 nurseries here at home? And I ask yovi, gentlemen, why not raise your own stock? 

 You get a good many worthless trees from the eastern nurseries. Can't you grow stock 

 here, and can't it be grown better and cheaper here than to pay the price and freight 

 from the east? I believe so, and I believe every fruit tree set in Allegan county 

 should be raised here in our own nurseries. 



To this President Lamiin replied, expressing thanks for Mr. Hart's 

 cordiality, which had made each visitor feel at home and at his ease; but 

 Mr. Hart had done more than this — he had offered practical suggestions 

 that should be considered. Mr. Lannin dwelt eloquently, and with much 

 poetic sentiment, upon the nobility of the pomologist's calling, and declared 

 that protection to the commercial interests of the fruitgrowers was one of 

 the corner stones, the cause of the origin, of this society, and that while no 

 f ruitgrow^ers are millionaires, most of them have all the comforts and many 

 of the luxuries of life. He warmly seconded Mr. Hart's suggestion that 

 Michigan fruitgrowers should buy trees of Michigan nurserymen, advocated 

 the education, by fruitgrowers, of public taste for the best quality of fruit, 

 and earnestly condemned the folly of false packing, l)oth as to fraudulent 

 use of inferior fruit and the packing of any kind in under-size packages, for 

 fruit is often low in price because so much that is worthless is put upon 

 sale, and at all times and under all conditions the culls should be kept out 

 of market. 



Under a call for reports of the fruit crop of the year, statements were 

 made by a number, showing that everywhere all kinds of fruit except 

 pears had been a very short crop. 



On entering the hall Wednesday morning the attraction was the magnifi- 

 cent display of fruit arranged on tables, consisting of apples, pears, and 

 grapes. This added much to the interest of the occasion. 



At 9 o'clock President Lannin called to order, and at once proceeded to 

 the regular order of business. 



