86 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



Prof. Burrill — I cannot answer the question. Some of the 

 appropriations inchide experimental work, but I think that most of 

 the appropriations of last winter were for special purposes. 



SECOND DAY — Evening Session. 



After calling to order, President Galusha said that he had just 

 been informed of the death of J. S. Johnson, of Hancock County, 

 which had occurred since our last meeting, and in a few well-chosen 

 words paid a fitting tribute to his memory. 



It was moved and carried that A. C. Hammond be added to the 

 Obituary Committee, and directed to prepare a paper on the death of 

 Mr. Johnson. 



Prof. W. H. Ragan, of Perdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, 

 was introduced, and delivered the following lecture on 



THE KELATIOX OF THE COMMERCIAL FRUIT GROWER TO 

 THE COMMISSION MAN AND TRANSPOR- 

 TATION COMPANIES. 



Those of you who have learned from the programme of this 

 meeting that Prof. W. H. Ragan would deliver a lecture at this time 

 on the above topic, are destined to disappointment in two particulars, 

 first, when I assure you that I am in no sense a professor, and second, 

 that this, instead of a lecture^ is but a simple paper upon a subject of 

 vital importance, truly, yet written in a plain and unpretentious 

 style. 



Commercial Fruit Growing, in the sense in which I use the 

 term, is comparatively a modern occupation; more properly, perhaps, 

 an occupation of recent origin. This is most especially true in rela- 

 tion to all small fruits and fruits of a perishable character. This is 

 not the result of favorable climatic changes, or even of improved 

 conditions of soils and varieties, but more largely due to recent facil- 

 ities for reaching the great centres of population and thus supplying, 

 to a class heretofore regarding a fruit diet as a Sunday luxury, what 

 is fast growing to be regarded as a necessary of life. 



You will thus see at once that the writer is disposed to look 

 upon the relations of the classes that stand at the head of this 

 paper, as mutual; that, so far as the commercial fruit grower is con- 

 cerned, whatever will aid him in placing his fruits before the consu- 

 mer in the best possible condition and in the shortest space of time, 

 is a boon to be desired. This the transportation companies and 



