120 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



for the most artistic lamp posts, benches, shelters, and other necessary- 

 street utilities. 



In these and in many other ways, the thousands of workers for civic 

 betterment all over our land are making concrete their desire for retaining 

 the beautiful without sacrificing the useful. The national government has 

 adopted a policy for conserving our great national beauty spots, as Niagara, 

 the Yellowstone Park, and similar reservations. Every community, large 

 or small, has its own natural assets; it is trustee for a certa n amount of 

 beauty in landscape, trees or water. What is it doing to make the place 

 more beautiful for the next generation? Adopt the motto of the Municipal 

 Art League of New York — "To make us love our city we must make our city 

 lovely" — and get behind every movement to preserve and enhance the 

 attractiveness of your community. You owe this much to the generations 

 that follow. 



STATISTICS ON THE COST OF PRODUCTION IN FRUIT GROWING. 



(S. W. FLETCHER, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.) 



The rapid development of commercial fruit growing within fifty years is one of the most 

 notable features of American Agriculture. The twelfth census reports that on 1.4 %, or 

 86,094 of the 6,149,584 farms in the United States, fruit growing is the leading industry. 

 These farms included 6,064,877 acres of fruit plants which produced, in 1899, 12,366,646 

 bushels of fruit, worth $83,751,840. In value of the product, fruit growing the eighth, 

 the crop ol com being $828,000,000; hay and forage, $484,000,000; wheat, $369,000,000; 

 'cotton, $323,000,000; oats, $217,000,000; vegetables, $113,000,000; forest products, 

 $109,000,000; potatoes, $98,000,000; fruit, $83,000,000. According to the same report, 

 there were $404,000,000 invested in fruit farms, as compared with $5,493,000,000 invested 

 in hay and grain farms, and $5,691,000,000 in the live stock industry. 



These figures reflect the rapidly increasing commercial importance of the fruit industry. 

 Unquestionably the next census will show that 25% or more has been added to the amount 

 of capital invested in fruit growing. The business of fruit growing is expanding more 

 rapidly than most other lines of crop industry. 



The rapidly increasing production of fruit has set in motion certain economic forces 

 which the fruit grower of today may well consider. As the area in fruit becomes larger, 

 competition becomes stronger and the prices received for fruit are correspondingly 

 lower. In most cases the larger demand for fruit, due to the increase in population 

 and the more common use of fruit as a staple article of diet, have not fully offset the 

 increasing competition. In general, the prices received for fruit are lower now than 

 they were fifteen years ago; that they will go lower still we have no doubt. 



To illustrate the fact that prices received for fruit are tending lower because of increas- 

 ing competition, and also that this general tendency is continually upset somewhat by 

 fluctuations in the relation between the supply and the demand for fruit, I quote the 

 following market reports on Baldwin apple, Bartlett pear, Concord grape, and "fancy" 

 quince. These quotations were taken from the files of the Rural New Yorker from 1880 

 to 1905, and are for the general market of New York City. The market quotations taken 

 were those for the week nearest the middle of each month. The price given for the year 

 was secured by averaging the prices quoted for the several months. In all cases the 

 quotations are for "fancy" fruit. 



