5(^> State Horticultural Society. 



I'o market the apples is the business of the apple shipper whose whole 

 time and attention is devoted to it. 



I do not deny that there are plenty of apple growers who have the 

 ability to market their own apples, but whether or not it is good policy 

 to do so, that is the question. Shakespeare says of the man who tries 

 to do two things at a time : 



"He is like a man to double business bound 

 and stands in pause where be shall first begin 

 and both ueglect." 



Although the apple shipper may be a pessimist, and, like the hen, 

 prefer to stick to the earth in his conservatism, yet, when the apple season 

 opens, he becomes an eagle in his flight, or like a race horse in his course, 

 he scours not only his own country, but all the foreign lands where 

 they have sense enough to eat American apples, to find the best markets. 

 He knows where the men are located who buy apples, and keep in con- 

 stant touch with them, and they know where to find him. 



To make apple growing in the United States profitable, with the 

 increasing production, we need Europe as an outlet. Now, if a man in 

 Liverpool, London, Amsterdam, Hamburg or Paris wants one or ten 

 thousand barrels of apples, he will not enquire all over our country among 

 the apple growers, but will send his telegrams and his orders to repu- 

 table, responsible apple shippers in Chicago, St. Louis, New York, Bos- 

 ton and other large cities. For this reason I consider that the apple 

 shipper or commission merchant, or apple buyer, as you- may call him, is 

 a necessary evil or a great blessing. All depends on how he treats the 

 apple grower. I may say by way of parenthesis, that sometimes the 

 apple shipper is almost as honest and reliable as the apple grower ; strange 

 as it may seem, but I have known of such cases. For five and twenty 

 years I have been a commission merchant myself, and on account of 

 the sins I committed, according- to the foolish opinion of some country 

 shippers, remorse struck me and I repented a good many years ago. 



In order to make proper atonement for my sins, I also became an 

 honest apple grower. Of course I had the good judgment to select 

 Missouri as my field of operation, and pitched my tent in the land of 

 "the big red apple. " I located on the Frisco system on top of the 

 Ozarks, "just midway between Memphis on the Bridge and Kansas City 

 on the Kaw," on what is called Missouri's highest ridge, and the finest 

 place you ever saw. The elevation at this point is so lofty and the atmos- 

 phere so ethereal that I sometimes dream of things above and beyond 

 this earth. 



In one of my dreams I saw Eros, the God of Strife, throw the prize 

 of beauty in the midst of the assembled divinities, and Juno, Minerva and 



