STATE POMOLOGICAIv SOCIETY. 21 



now hold them and dispose of them at their own satisfaction. 

 The apple grower in this State has not even the opportunities 

 that the potato grower has. This is the situation, and you will 

 ask what is my solution of it. A very simple one and one 

 not very hard to put into operation, and it is for the farmers 

 themselves who produce apples to any great extent and who 

 have orchards coming into bearing, to arrange for lots of land 

 on side tracks, or where side tracks can be built near the rail- 

 road stations, along the apple growing sections of the State, 

 upon which they can build storage houses for their apples ; cold 

 storage or such storage as will keep the apples till the time when 

 the market calls for them. Every product has a time during the 

 year when it is needed for consumption, and those who want it 

 will find it wherever located. To illustrate, if there were 50,000 

 barrels of apples stored in different storehouses along the line 

 of the M. C. R. R. from Waterville to Lewiston, which is all an 

 apple growing country, the selling houses and jobbers of Boston 

 and New York would know just how many apples were there 

 in those houses, the minute they were filled, and the minute 

 the market called for those apples, they would have them. In 

 other words, they would come to the farmers for this product, 

 and the time to sell anything is the time when somebody wants 

 it, and when one wants to buy a product, he will pay a fair 

 price for it. Under these circumstances the farmer would be 

 master of the situation. The only question is, How are we to 

 tackle the problem of building the store house? An investment 

 of money is required, and the cost of building and expense of 

 maintenance and care must be borne by the apple grower. What 

 better way to get the net result to the Maine farmer than for the 

 Maine farmer to do it himself, or for the community in which 

 the apples are grown. And our Maine farmers have plenty 

 of money, in many instances deposited in our Maine Savings 

 Banks, which could be used toward this enterprise, and it is 

 simply a matter of investing more capital in their own busi- 

 ness. The question simply is, — Have these men confidence 

 enough to invest their own money in this their own business? 

 While the Maine apple has the flavor which no other apple 

 raised in the Union has, it can also be kept till the apples of the 

 other states are practically all out of the market, if provision 

 is made for properly keeping them, and the situation is entirely 



