150 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



selecting of strong branches for renewal, from as near the main cane as 

 possible. Some trim out their vines in fan shape, but if the vine is 

 started so it is hard to change it to the Knifl&n system. 



Mr. Fkank Stainton, having been asked to do so, trimmed the vine in 

 about the same way as described by Mr. Lawton, leaving four arms (two 

 on each wire) and forty to fifty buds. 



METHODS IN MARKETING. 



This subject was taken up, and introduced by the following paper from 

 Mr. J. Gr. Ramsdell of South Haven: 



This question of the fruitgrowers marketing their own fruit has been 

 discussed quite frequently in many fruit sections, with varied success and 

 failures. In a few locations, better conditions have been effected, while 

 others have remained unchanged, still pursuing the good old way of giving 

 the middle-man the lion's share of the profits. 



California growers have demonstrated through agencies that they can 

 distribute their own fruit by sending it into the most of the chief centers 

 of the United States, their best fruit packed and delivered in the best con- 

 dition; claimiug and receiving the highest price in all the principal markets 

 of this country from ocean to ocean. 



How has this been accomplished? It certainly is not the large size nor 

 superior quality of their fruit alone, that has enabled these kings of the 

 fruit market to monopolize the chief centers of trade from one to three 

 thousands miles from home. Nor is it to be attributed to cheap lands, 

 cheap labor, or cheap transportation, but to the perfect system of selecting 

 and packing only the best fruit in the best manner and leaving the balance 

 at home. This fruit is put up honestly and handled carefully, and is 

 sought after by the dealers, by the carload, and sold by samples that don't 

 lie. In fact, it goes without saying that the buyer of a carload of Califor- 

 nia fruit knows as well what is in the car before it is unloaded as though 

 he had opened every package. In confirmation of this statement, a com- 

 mission man in Chicago said he could handle and dispose of a carload of 

 California fruit with less trouble and expense than he could one fourth of 

 that amount often shipped to him by several parties in Michigan on the 

 same day. 



Does any fruitgrower of experience in Michigan doubt that what has 

 been done by California, on so large a scale, with all the drawbacks of a 

 distant market, can be done at other points, where fruit can be grown 

 as cheaply and placed on the market in less time, and at much less 

 expense? I am not alone in the belief that the fruitgrowers of Michigan 

 are able to compete with California, or any other state in the Union, in 

 the different fruits raised within their borders. To be sure, California, as 

 a rule, can raise more fruit to the acre (being very much larger), but the 

 high-priced land, with water for irrigation, and the extra cost of labor and 

 freight, will more than overbalance the account in our favor. Their insects 

 and fungi, as a whole, are as damaging as ours, so we are even on that 

 drawback. 



Michigan has a new competitor in the large central markets of the 



