STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 89 



If the man is all right, if he loves trees, loves the care and 

 culture of them, doesn't mind spraying, doesn't mind all the 

 dirty work on the farm, can get the capital necessary to buy 

 suitable land, suitable trees, and all the necessary spraying- 

 machinery and feftiHzers and labor, and is willing to watch and 

 wait, and wait and watch, and wait some longer, and put in 

 some more capital, then there is an opportunity. But it takes a 

 long, long time. And it takes a great deal more money and a 

 great deal more energy than it ever did before. 



Within a week I was called to visit an orchard property where 

 one successful business man of the city had agreed to pay the 

 capital and a youngish fellow was to furnish the brains, and 

 they planned at the start that for ten years it would take a 

 certain amount of capital. They have reached the fall of the 

 third year and that capital is all gone and they want to know 

 what they are going to do for the other seven years. They can 

 get the money but is it wise to get it? If they figured as best 

 they could and the money for ten years had been absorbed in 

 thlree years in the care of the orchard, it was a question with 

 the capitalist whether it was advisable for him to put in more 

 money and go to the end of the game or give the orchard to 

 the young man and let him take it and do the best he could. As 

 a business proposition, was it safe or wise to go on investing 

 chat amount of money? 



I speak of these cases simply to hang out a sign of caution 

 that we are going pretty fast. Some one has said "Why, we 

 can always sell good apples." To be sure we can. But you 

 cannot always sell the kind of apples that you have sold in the 

 past, the low grade apples. Some one says "The poor man 

 wants them." No, the poor man will see these beautiful apples 

 and he will demand as good looking apples for himself as any- 

 body else has. But he must have them at a low price, and the 

 apples of the future have got to be grown, or delivered, at a 

 moderate price. But it is going to cost something to grow them. 

 Prices are low this year. Our friends on the Pacific Northwest, 

 two or three years ago were telling us we should not have 

 to sell an apple below $1.50 a box f. o. b. They were then get- 

 ting $2.25 to $2.50. This year they can't sell them at all out 

 there. Very few apples are selling on the Pacific coast at any 

 price. Buyers who went there in former years to make money 



