420 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tion will be relieved from embarrassment very soon after this government takes 

 action to make the importation I'roni Canada free of duty. 



Mr. EarJe wished to express the idea that the duties imposed were not in the 

 least protective. Producers were not aided on either side, and illustrated as 

 follows: 



The gentlemen in Canada who may be growing tomatoes or strawberries are 

 not protected in their interests, because there is a duty of forty cents on abushel 

 of tomatoes and two cents on a quart of strawberries, and twenty per cent ad 

 valorem on jieaches or pears, or American fruits, and because at the time the 

 fruits are taken from America into Canada they have no fruits to bring into their 

 own market. As soon as their products appear in the season our fruits seek no 

 market there; hence their interests are not promoted by this tariff. "We do not 

 usually bring apples from Canada to any extent, for we have an abundance of 

 apples on this side of the line, and the freight charges are quite heavy and the 

 expenses attending it, so that there is no reason why it should be done. Tlie 

 fruit-raisers do not ieel that they are protected, but rather that the whole ques- 

 tion is involved in embarrassments and inconveniences on account of the exist- 

 ence of duties on the other side. 



He urged that our government does not certainly need the very small revenue 

 "which accrues from this trade, and without doubt the Canadian government 

 would manage to get on very comfortably if it were cut off. 



There is no good reason for this continuance of a tariff which protects no 

 one and which restricts a trade that ior the good of all parties should be stim- 

 ulated. When our northwest can not be supplied by home production it wants 

 Canadian fruits to be admitted freely and no harm will come to our fruitgrow- 

 ers. On the other hand our brothers in the British possessions are all anxious 

 to have the early fruits from the south enter their borders without hindrance. 

 There can be no unwholesome competition about it. Absolute free trade in 

 these products is in the interest of everybody. When we have enougii of our 

 own Canadian fruits will not seek our markets, and when we lack our usual 

 supply we want all they can send us with no percentage added to pay custom 

 house ofiticers. 



We quote again from Mr. Earle's conference with the commissioners as illus- 

 trating the embarrassments shrown in the way of trade in perisliable iruit: 



You will see how many inconveniences and very serious losses are liable to 

 result from the delays which often occur in the passage of fruits from one 

 country to another on account of the imposition of duties. In tne case of one 

 of our committee, there were two car loads of apples sent to his house in 

 Chicago at a time when they were quite valuable, two years ago, and they were 

 delayed twenty or thirty days in Detroit because some one in the custom house 

 there supposed that the valuation (it was an ad valorem duty) was too small, 

 and no means were taken to correct this valuation until nearly a month had 

 elapsed. 



VANDALISM. 



A correspondent of the Rural New Yorker says some earnest things about 

 the thieving of fruits : 



Within a few days past I have been forcibly niiiinded (but not for the Qrst 

 time) that there is one phase of fruit culture that has received altogether too 



