No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 407 



I was in the city of Louisville this last season during the time 

 the great peach crop was coming into market, and I w^ent where the 

 commission men were buying and selling. The sole complaint was 

 this: "If you will not produce better fruit and bring it into market 

 in better condition we must go some place else to get our fruit." I 

 realized this at once. I couldn't find a bushel on the streets of Louis- 

 ville — and there w^ere thousands and thousands of bushels of peaches 

 there, — I couldn't find a bushel of first-class peaches. 



Then we found men again who, when they found this to be the 

 case, went to w^ork and hired men who knew how to pick the fruit 

 off the tree, knew how to select it and how to prepare it for the 

 market, and they could ship it into the Chicago market and get 

 first-class prices for it. Why? Simply because they knew how to 

 prepare and get their fruit into the market. 



Suppose for instance, an apple grower would come to me in the 

 city of Pittsburg on Liberty street, where thousand of bushels of 

 apples are received every week, thousands of the most beautiful 

 apples on the top of the barrel, and suppose the question is asked, 

 ''How much do you want a barrel for them?" So much. "Will you 

 guarantee them just as good in the middle of the barrel as on top?" 

 "No, I can't do it. You will find just as good apples in the bottom of 

 the barrel, but not in the center." Now why can't we put just as 

 good apples all through that barrel, then take our stamp and put 

 it on each barrel. 



W^hat would you think if you went into the market to buy a bar- 

 rel of sugar, to find a common, inferior article in the center of the 

 barrel? Suppose when I went into the market with a basket of 

 butter, and had first-class' butter put up most beautifully on the 

 top of the basket, and it was sold out in the market and we found 

 that some older butter w^as kept back and — perhaps in the bottom of 

 the basket — the buyer would soon find out where it came from. 

 Why not let every basket of goods that we take into the market 

 be in such good condition that we can affix our name to it, then our 

 goods will be readily sold. 



Never was there a time when good articles are sought for as they 

 are to-day. The people have the money to buy them, and they will 

 buy them. The only question is, W^hy can't we put the right kind 

 of an article into the market? 



I only want to cite one more case near home. My brother has a 

 very fine peach orchard and takes great delight in it, digging around 

 the trees and looking after them, and trimming them off every day, 

 spraying them, and taking care of them. Some years ago I was 

 on his place and he had a most magnificent crop of peaches. He 

 said to me one day: "I can't sell my peaches. I can't market them; 

 they, are selling peaches here for a dollar a bushel." I had had some 

 experience; I learned this over in Ohio. I said: "I'll tell you what 

 I will do; I will make you a proposition. Make the price of your 

 peaches higher than any other peaches sold in the community. " Do 

 not put a blemished pen eh in one of your baskets. If you will do 

 this, every peach you can't sell, I will agree to take off your hands." 

 My friends, I didn't get a single peach. There was at once a demand 

 for them and has been every year since. The talk is to-day, "Does 

 your brother have any peaches? Will he have any peaches? I 



