Winter Meeting. 271 



not prove death to the trees if they are in a healthy condition, yet it 

 Avill prove their death if trees are as badly injured as last winter, and 

 herein was the great mistake made. 



The work of the society, since last we met at Peirce City, has been 

 in the line of assistance to all our apple growers in giving them infor- 

 mation about the apple crop and helping to secure buyers in the many 

 localities of our state. Buyers have been plenty, evaporators have been 

 at work the whole of the season. Prices have ranged from thirty cents 

 to seventy-five cents per bushel for the apples alone, that would grade 

 Xo. 1 or Xo. 2, while the culls sold from ten cents to thirty cents per 

 bushel to the evaporators. These prices were certainly far beyond the 

 value of apples in the condition they were at gathering time. Buyers 

 certainly overreached themselves in the prices on the quality of the 

 fniit on the market. The growers, once as'ain, have had bv far the 

 best of the bargain in the apple crop this year. It is to be hoped that 

 the result will not prove as disastrous to the buyers as it now seems, for 

 it would be a misfortune to every fruit grower to have the apple buyers 

 lose money on their purchases, for we will be sure to feel the results 

 next year. The following clipping taken from a trade paper shows 

 the serious loss thev have sustained : 



THE LOSS ON APPLES. 



From the Fruitman's Guide. 



"Xot in the last ten years has the apple situation been so compli- 

 cated nor the loss so heavy. From South Water street comes the wail 

 that the Chicago commission men are $200,000 "in the hole" on apples ; 

 around Washington street the rumor is going around and gaining 

 volume at every revolution that the apple men here are $250,000 on 

 the -wrong side of the ledger, and it is alleged that the three weeks of 

 exceptionally hot weather in October which "cooked"' many consign- 

 ments so badly that even cold storage could not save them from decay 

 has cost the apple men of the United States over $1,000,000. Be this 

 as it may — for a million dollars is a big sum — it is certain that tlie 

 apple situation is a "parlous" one, and no turn is to be hoped for until 

 the long deferred cold Aveather comes and comes in the shape of a hard 



