434 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



indoors when they ought to be moving about and stretching their 

 muscles, but 1 do think it is an advantage to their health, and be- 

 sides gives them spending money if they come out and pick cherries 

 during vacation time. We have usually about 100 pickers. It is 

 light work and the boys enjoy it. At first I paid by the day, but 1 

 have changed to paying by the basket, and I lind that it is a great 

 advantage. When I paid by the day, about every five minutes some 

 one would want to know what time it was. "How long is it going 

 to be before we quit?" But since we pay by the basket and use the 

 card system, they are liable to ask different questions. I will hear 

 them saying, ''I am going to try to get so many before noon," "Have 

 I time to pick another basket before we quit?" And it sort of cheers 

 them and it keeps them good natured. Some children will pick 

 twice as many as others, and this will cause trouble when we pay 

 by the day. One boy will say, "I am as old as he is." "I am as big 

 as he is if I am not as old." We get the same thing accomplished 

 and it relieves us a great deal. You know the result is what we are 

 after. It doesn't make so much difference how it is done. 



Our market for the cherries has been a good one to preserving 

 companies. Probably nine-tenths of the cherries that are jj-rown 

 about our place are sold to the different canning factories. It makes 

 a very quick and easy way to dispose of them. They estimate how 

 many we have. They used to try to bu}^ as many as they wanted. 

 We farmers are not quite as quick to get on to things as business 

 men are, and found that when there was a large crop there was 

 difficult in disposing of what was left, so that now we sell the cron 

 outright, estimating as nearly as possible and the buyer agrees to 

 take the entire crop, be it more or less. 



Now a few words about pears. If you have enterprising busi- 

 ness men in your locality, one of the improvements in the near 

 future will be the erection of a cold storage plant. The growing of a 

 large quantity of pears will help bring this about, because the stor- 

 age can be first filled with them and they will begin to move off to 

 market as apples begin to come to take their place. 



In planting pears, I should limit myself to a few choice varie- 

 ties. And first of all comes the Seckel, because it is the standard 

 of excellence the world over. There is nothing that excels it in 

 quality. If I had soil that would grow Seckels a little larger than 

 the average size, there would be no danger of planting too many. 

 Besides being rather a slow, hardy grower, it is not so subject to 

 blight as most other varieties. , 



The next choice would be Bartlett, a standard variety always in 

 demand and always will be. 



The third would be Bosc, a large, late pear, very nice and juicy, 

 equally as good for canning and desert purposes and a good seller on 

 fruit stands. 



And I am planting apples. In my slow-growing soil, we claim 

 it takes twenty years to bring an apple tree to perfection. What is 

 the use of your planting apples? Well a man has the satisfaction of 

 doing something that is going to live longer than he does. I have 

 in my possession a farm on which ray father spent his life, upon 

 which I was born and reared and I have a boy in Cornell Universitv 



