JNJMA.NA lloR'lJrl 1.1't KAK S()( ll.lA. 401 



and you are ready to say grace I hope that you will not say that you are 

 thankful that -what I say ain't so. I wonder if you have ever thought 

 that within a radius of ten miles from the center of New York there are 

 four million three hundred twenty thousand people. Just think of that. 

 You could take some two or more of the States of the Union west of the 

 Mississippi River and there would not be as many people in all of them 

 combined as there are within a radius of ten miles from the mouth of the 

 Hudson River as a center. This is wonderful. Out of this four and one- 

 half millions of people not five per cent, ever raise any fruit; ninety-five per 

 cent, are totally dependent on the farmers and fruit growers for what they 

 eat. Suppose for a moment what would happen in New Y'ork City if they 

 did not receive supplies from the country. For one day's consumption 

 forty-four thousand barrels of apples, one hundi-ed twenty-five thousand 

 baskets of peaches, and two and one-half million quarts of strawberries are 

 used. If the people of New York would consume as many apples accord- 

 ingly as the farmers do, they would use instead of three per cent, of the 

 apple crop, about fifteen per cent., or five times as many as they do now. 

 The people of New York do not eat one-tenth of the fruit they ought to, 

 and the fruit they eat is not as fresh as it might be. In New York they 

 buj' for looks, and the Ben Davis apple has not a taste in accordance with 

 its appearance and it thereby begets a disuse of apples. This is why 

 I am frank to say that the Ben Davis apple is not the proper 

 apple for New York. I want to be perfectly fair and plain 

 about these matters, friends. I will tell you the exact truth. The 

 people of New York demand a strong, biting acid in their fruit. My 

 partner is a man who lives in the city. He went to the city to live, 

 and he educated his girls to be apple eaters. He told me this instance. 

 He said to his housekeeper one day that every day there should be fruit 

 on the table, and that he would be perfectly willing to pay for it. He 

 said he kept a large plate of bananas, oranges, and red apples, which they 

 bought at the grocery store. At first the apples were all eaten and the 

 oranges and bananas left, but it got so that the apples were left and the 

 other things eaten. He did not understand this, for he became so him- 

 self that he would rather eat an orange or banana instead of an apple. 

 His bill for apples decreased, and the others increased. He thought surely 

 something was the matter, and he began to investigate and found that 

 the man where he was buying his apples was not selling him the same 

 kind of apples as formerly. That up to the middle of February he had 

 sold him Spitzenl)urgs, and after that time he had been selling his Ben 

 Da vises, and this was the cause. Now I am telling you the exact truth, 

 and the facts just as they happened. This is the way the Ben Davis loses 

 out. I will say this: I will not find fault, I)ut I will tell the truth. The 

 New York trade is i)eculiar. The apple trade is very peculiar. I sujipose 

 that seventy-five or eighty per cent, of the apple trade in New York is 

 carried on bj' the push cart vendors or fruit stands, run by Italians. 



'26-A«rri. 



