Summer Meeting. 5^ 



THE APPLE GROWER AND THE APPLE SHIPPER. 



(Louis Erb, Memphis, Tenn.) 



Your convention being held in the World's Fair City of St. Louis, I 

 took for granted that it would be attended by apple growers as well 

 as by apple shippers. For this reason I selected for my subject, "The 

 Apple Grower and the Apple Shipper." Under the circumstances I also 

 concluded that it would be proper, on this occasion, to say a good word 

 lor Missouri, and especially the Missouri apple grower. 



I am enjoying the freedom and hospitality of this city and State 

 on the same terms that you are, any where from $2.50 to $15.00 a day, 

 and it behooves me to show and express my appreciation, besides I am 

 a Missouri apple grower myself, and as the crop looks short this year, 

 I need encouragement in another direction. As the progress of a race 

 of people is indicated by the care for fruits and flowers and the char- 

 acter of its apple growers, so may we also judge of its taste, culture and 

 refinement by the appearance of its apple shippers. If the men I see 

 before me are a fair representation of the latter, then I must confess our 

 race is in good luck and a subject for congratulation. As co-workers of 

 the apple growers in civilizing humanity, by supplying it with apples, 

 they may not scale the dome of the temple of fame, nor attain to great 

 honor and renown, but surely the w'orld is better off for their living 

 in it. 



If all the politicians from Maine to California were put in a big sack 

 and dumped into Salt river it would certainly be a great calamity, but 

 the nation would still live and the people prosper, but what would the 

 world do without the apple shippers ? The first apple shipper, of whom 

 we have any record was Eve in the Garden of Eden, when she plucked 

 the apple from the forbidden tree and shipped it to Adam. And as a 

 result of her first shipment, there came the clothing and the millinery 

 business. 



As I stated on a former occasion, our distinguished friend, Mr. P. 

 M. Kiely of St. Louis, after thorough investigation, has made the im- 

 portant discovery that this first shipment of apples from the Garden of 

 Eden consisted entirely of Ben Davis. And for making this discovery 

 we owe him a debt of gratitude which we never can pay. 



Now what is the difference between the apple grower and the apple 

 shipper? The difference between the apple grower and the apple shipper 

 is, that one is an optimist while the other is a pessimist. The difference 



