522 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



SHOULD QUALITY OK QUANTITY BE OUR AIM? 



By 1Io.\. W. T. Ckkasy", CatiiwiKsa, Pa. 



More than fifty years ago the author of Barry's Fruit Garden said: 

 "The fine fruits that were formerly considered as luxuries only for 

 the tables of the wealthy are beginning to take their place among 

 the ordinary supplies of every man's table; and this taste must grow 

 from year to year, with an increased supply." The family that con- 

 sumes a bushel of good fruit this year will want a larger quantity 

 next year. Since it would appear that both quantity and quality 

 should be our aim, and in the great desire to secure quantity we let 

 go of quality, and by having poor quality we need not so much quan- 

 tity, so of the two I prefer quality and so do you, at least for our 

 use. But when we produce fruit for sale we often think the peo- 

 ple want nothing but quantity, when in reality with a little education 

 they also want quality. Then what is the effect? The fruit with 

 quality will sell while the poor fruit must waste, and is this not 

 about the condition of affairs we have arrived at in the fruit busi- 

 ness in this State, as well as in the United States? 



I believe the planting of fruit is being overdone, and those who 

 have planted varieties for quantity only will find no market for their 

 fruit, at least not at profitable prices. A few years ago fall and 

 winter pears of the varieties of high quality brought good prices, 

 but the large planting of the Kieffer drove out quality, and to-day 

 we are awakening to the fact that the Kieffer pear is selling for 

 little or nothing, and I will venture the prophecy that in a few years 

 people will again pay the price for quality. The Kieffer pear has 

 often been compared to a potato for quality. While I will not affirm 

 or deny that its quality is poorer, I do say that the price is less than 

 that of potatoes. I question very much whether the per capita con- 

 sumption of pears to-day is as great as it was ten or twelve years 

 ago, when there was a larger per cent, of better pears in the mar- 

 ket. 



In our section of the State we had a big apple crop and thousands 

 of bushels went to waste, principally from two causes: First, there 

 seemed to be no co-operation among the growers to dispose of their 

 crop; and, secondly, many were of such poor quality that the only 

 way to get shut of them was to let them rot on and under the trees. 

 I disposed of a carload of Baldwins to a customer in Nebraska, and 

 the principal reason why I could sell them to a customer so far away 

 was because they were not Ben Davis. I met one of this man's em- 

 ployes a few days ago and asked him whether they had no apples in 

 the West and he said, "We have Ben Davis, but our customers know- 

 that apple too well and would rather have none than that." I asked 

 him how about the Y^ork State apples, and he replied, "They are too 

 green, while yours are nicely colored, and carefully packed." 



The apple market has been more or less demoralized this season 

 and it is quantity and not quality that has made the business un- 

 profitable. A great deal of money can be saved and made by dig- 

 ging up fruit trees and plants bearing worthless fruits. 



Another general cause of poor prices is our carelessness in culture 

 and getting our fruit on the market. With the greatly increased cost 



