456 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Buffalo, and iB pleased with it, doeen't know where to get more. But the large orchards 

 are going to be able to supply the demand and make a reputation and create a demand 

 for large amounts. This question is puzzling me in' regard to my Georgia orchard of 

 six hundred acres of peaches. Our Connecticut orchards are eo established that we 

 can afford to advertise and make a reputation, and so secure a ready market at con- 

 siderably higher prices than others get. With six hundred acres of peaches to market 

 it becomes necessary for me to make a name and reputation for that fruit and it must 

 be my study to find how best to reach the ear. eye and pocket of the consumer in 

 the northern states. This is the problem that faces me, and I shall have to pay for the 

 solving of it before that orchard can be the great financial success I hope and believe 

 it will be. And those same questions must enter the mind of every orchardist in the 

 future. 



I said that the dealers at the present time know more of the market and of the busi- 

 iness than the producer. Last year Sullivan county had quite a crop of apples and 

 they could hardly find a man in all that county who knew bow to pick, grade and pack 

 that fruit properly for market. The producers had to send to New York for men who 

 were proficient at the work, with the result that they made nearly all the profit. 



THE VENTILATING CRAZE. 



When Dr. Caldwell was talking about the preservation of fruits I thought how 

 important it was. In the early days of my berry culture much was said about ventilat- 

 ing crates and baskets. My observation has taught me that we are ventilating too 

 much. If you can pick the fruit dry and pack moderately cool, the tighter crates and 

 baskets you put them in, and the less you expose to the air the longer they will keep. 

 I have experimented some in sending and receiving samples of small fruits. Where 

 strawberries are to be shipped a long distance take them when the dew is off in the 

 morning, or at night before the dew is on them, put wads of cotton around them and 

 pack tight, thus excluding air and germs, and you can ship to any point in the United 

 States. I have had strawberries parked in that way keep for fourteen days. It is my 

 plan in my southern orchard to build a large cold storage house, manufacture our own 

 ice, and when they begin to pick peaches in the morning follow around and have the 

 first picking reach the shed half an hour after leaving the trees, send to sorting bench, 

 pack in the carrier and go into cold storage within an hour after leaving the tree ; and 

 keep it up all through the day. The same with berries. Pick when most convenient, 

 but if done in the heat of the day let the fruit cool off. After once cold, the tighter 

 you shut up the better they will keep and be more showy for the markets. 



APPLE ORCHARDING NOT OVERDONE. 



I was somewhat surprised to hear the opinion expressed here that apple-orcharding 

 was being overdone. My observation in travels all over the country, is that intelligent 

 apple culture is not keeping pace with the consumptive power of the people. There is 

 a wonderful opening for the intelligent planting and care of apple orchards. And I 

 want the young men here at this meeting to know this. It makes me ashamed of 

 horticulturists when I go into the markets anywhere and see better oranges than 

 apples, when apples can be grown for so much lees. Apples are in greater demand not 

 only as a healthy food, but also for the ornamentation of the table. The future of the 

 apple industry is bright ; and I believe it will pay greater returns than any other 

 legitimate investment made on the farm or off. You must plant large orchards ; the 

 larger the more economical and more intelligently you can care for them. Save every- 

 where. They will last longer than a peach orchard. I was up in northern Vermont 

 last year, near Lake Champlain, a section particularly adapted to the production of 

 fine apples. I was speaking of the results from apple growing and a gentleman got 

 thoroughly aroused on the subject. We are going to plant three hundred acres there. 

 The gentlemen who are putting their money into it, some of them farmers, some 

 capitalists, think they see a safe investment and liberal returns. But three hundred 

 acres will hardly supply one county in New England. This idea that planting on a 

 large scale is going to overdo the thing, is a fallacy. I can sell fruit easier to-day, and 

 more of it than I could thirty years ago. My mother was left with two young boys. 

 Some people labored with her and wanted to know why she let those boys take some 

 of her best tobacco land and put it into fruit; told her they would run her into the 

 poorhouse, but as yet no such calamity has overtaken her. Don't be afraid of over- 

 doing. 



Dr. Caldwell thought the speaker was right in his ideas concerning the packing 



