STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. H^J 



Mr. Pearson — I have no objection to vote for the resolution if it 

 would do any good. The dealers will hear us, and treat us very cour- 

 teously, and then go about their business, and do as they please. We 

 have tried it. All thi' resolutions that we can pass will do no good. 



Mr. Schuyler — They sell potatoes by weight in Chicago, why not 

 sell other vegetables and fruits by weight ' 



Mr. Robinson — For my part, I have often sold by weight. and that 

 by the car-load. My apples run about forty-seven to forty-nine pounds 

 to the bushel. 



Mr. WiER — The Bellflower will weigh only forty-two pounds. 



Mr. Earle — This discussion is very interesting to me but 1 want 

 to call the attention of this Society to the subject of camiing. 



We have a company at our town, who have turned out one hundred 

 twenty thousand cans. They paid the growers from seventy-five cents 

 to one dollar and ten cents per bushel for peaches. 



I think this canning interest is worth something to the producer 

 and will help us to utilize our fruits. 



The time was when peaches were worth too much to can them, but 

 now we have them, in favorable seasons, in abundance, and many can 

 be utilized only in this way. If in Baltimore they can put up canned 

 fruits and sell them among us w ith profit, why can not we do it ? 



Mr. Pearson — Mr. President: — I had, not long since, a conference 

 with a man at Baltimore who had experience in this business of canning. 

 1 went through his large establishment from top to bottom. He was 

 doing a large and profitable business. 1 told him we had often talked 

 about starting this canning business out west, but some who have started 

 this enterprise do not seem to get ahead, and asked him what is the 

 matter ? 



The man laughed and said, " My engine never stops; when fruits 

 fail, we can vegetables, then oysters, and we have something doing all 

 the time." 1 think it would be well for gentlemen who think of going 

 into this business to go to Baltimore and see how they manage to make 

 it pay. They make the cans, and all the work from beginning to end is 

 performed by them. This firm have not less than five thousand dollars 

 invested in the business. 



Mk. Earle — That is a \ery fair jKjiiU to raise, but it does not take 

 five thousand dollars to start a canning establishment in Southern Illinois. 

 I am not myself in this business, but I know the members of the firm at 



