THE ANNUAL MEETING. 179 



Spy! Much of comfort and iiuich of health can we derive from these friends 

 that stay when otlicr friends depart. If well grown and well cared for they 

 come slowly to maturity, while outside vegetation slirinks and withers before 

 the blast — they are nature's recompense for nature's roughness. The area in 

 which these long keepers can be cultivated with eminent success, as compared 

 with the rest of the globe, is very limited, and can scarcely furnish an over 

 supply. 



AV'e have not, as fruit-growers, done our duty wdien apples sell for five dollars a 

 barrel, or sixty cents a peck, in the month of April, in the city of Detroit. There 

 ought to be — very bad seasons excepted — a full supply at half those prices, and 

 there will be when Michigan fruit men do their duty. Prices are enhanced and 

 profits greatly reduced by the loose and careless methods of growers and 

 dealers. It is claimed that workingmen ought to thank God and the corpora- 

 tions for ^'a dollar a day," but that don't put much science into tiieir heads, 

 or many apples into their stomachs in spring time. As patriots and Christians 

 we ought to strive with unwearied diligence to cheapen prices while we increase 

 our profits. When we know all that can be known about fruit growing, and 

 practice what we do know, fruits will be cheaper and our profits greater. 

 Economy in production cheapens prices, increases the demand and enlarges 

 sales. Immense losses lately occurred in the State of New York, and probably 

 elsewhere during the hot weather in autumn. Greenings headed up tight, kept 

 in the sun or stowed away in hot 2:»laces, with the thermometer at summer heat 

 could not help rotting — the loss comes in the end mainly out of the grower; 

 the consumer is oppressed by high prices and the market curtailed. 

 The points we make are : 



First. — Each locality is especially adapted to a particular product, which 

 should receive special and sometimes almost exclusive attention. 



Second. — We should drop out of our lists all but the most profitable varieties, 

 to be ascertained by close and careful estimates. x\s we exhaust elements of 

 fertility our Provident Parent put into the soil, and fail to restore them, varie- 

 ties that once gave a small profit now give a larger loss. What pays in one 

 place, removed a few rods won't pay at all. This points out, in our judgment, 

 precisely the w^ay in which fruit-growers are making their greatest mistakes. 

 Their chief error is in persisting to cultivate unprofitable varieties. Exhib- 

 itors are to educate and gratify the public, and we do not complain that the 

 visitors at the State fair were allowed to look at a large collection of fruit; 

 we concede that a State so diversified as Michigan may find places for many 

 varieties, but should make haste and find where they belong and keep them 

 there. We need not raise all we require for home consumption. Exchanges 

 are every day easier to make. If we can swap to advantage, let us swap. 



Third. — Late keeping apples, coming when there is no other fresh fruit, are 

 especially entitled to consideration. Territories peculiarly adapted to them 

 *^ should mind their own business," and leave other fruits to sections that find 

 profit in looking after them. Late keepers in this country and abroad, can 

 find an almost unlimited market at reasonable rates — rates that will pay those 

 that can grow them to advantage. 



Fourili. — Improved facilities for drying and otherwise preserving summer 

 and autumn fruits, will vastly increase their use, making their extended culti- 

 vation necessary and profitable, and hasten the good time coming, vrhen the 

 gardener will be ahead of the butcher as "before the fall." 



Fifth. — Grapes are second only to ap2:)les in importance. They grow wild 



