102 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



peaches and grapes, the largest peach orchard now in bearing being nearly 

 800 acres, with numerous others nearly as large to soon come into bearing; 

 and we are informed that a company was formed last July, in Ohio, to plant 

 200,000 peach trees in Fort Valley, Georgia, next spring; and numerous 

 other similar enterprises are being located in the successful peach-growing 

 regions. So with grapes, and to a lesser extent with berries, but not so 

 much with pears. 



We do not mention all these facts with any intention of discouraging 

 Michigan growers, but to call their attention to what they must compete 

 with in the near future, and endeavor to point out the only safe course to 

 pursue, and impress them with the idea that the very best methods will be 

 none too good in a very few years, and that the struggle must result in the 

 survival of the fittest. 



It is no time to sit idly down and mourn, if your crops do not pay as 

 well as you might wish, but it is a good time to begin laying a foundation 

 for better work by hustling around after better knowledge of your business, 

 studying the methods of the most successful growers, and improving upon 

 them if you can 



Do not attempt to grow everything, but confine yourself to the fruit and 

 varieties of fruit that succeed best on your soil; then grow enough to 

 attract attention, pu\, it up for sale just as you would wish to purchase it, 

 make it just as good as you possibly can, and practice no deception what- 

 ever. When you put up a barrel of apples, see that it holds three bushels 

 and not nine or ten pecks. If it is a quart of berries, see that it is a quart 

 and not three fourths or seven eighths of a quart, and see that all the big 

 ones are not on top. In short, make all even packing throughout. 



Now let us see what methods are practiced by our heavy commercial 

 grower of today. He first ascertains what varieties of aj)ple are favorites 

 in the market, then learns where they are grown the most successfully, 

 looks the country over and buys a large tract of the best land he can get; 

 then goes to some reliable nursery and selects such trees as he wants, fits 

 his ground properly, sets his trees right, puts some reliable man in charge 

 of the work, then attends to other business, visiting his orchard occasion- 

 ally. If the purchase is made in Missouri, the land costs $5 to $15 per 

 acre, and the varieties set are Ben Davis, Willow Twig, Winesap, Jonathan, 

 Missouri Pippin, and Huntsman's Favorite. Then, in six or seven years, 

 they begin to give him crops of fine fruit. The orchard is now worth $100 

 to $300 per acre and will continue to pay a large interest on that sum for 

 ten or fifteen years. 



If he prefers peaches, he may come to Michigan or he may go to the 

 mountain regions of Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, or Missouri, where 

 they succeed. It makes little diifference where, provided the soil and 

 climate are adapted to the crop and there is a railroad convenient, as our 

 shrewd commercial grower can get good rates if he has enough fruit to 

 make it an object. Then, with a competent selling agent or commission 

 man, and refrigerator cars when needed, he can put his fruit upon the 

 market where it will bring the most money, and a sample package drawn 

 from any part of the car can be used to sell the entire lot, as the owner is 

 a shrewd man and knows that a square deal brings round dollars; and he 

 can sell carloads faster than most men can sell wagon-loads. 



The grape business is rapidly drifting into the same channels. I have 

 now in mind one young man in Illinois who, after shipping his croj) from 

 more than 100 acres, in 1889, went to New York and bought seventy car- 



