Winter Meeting. 181 



This looks too much like "fighting the devil with fire" to suit 

 me, but commercialism, the greai: anti-Christ of the twentieth cen- 

 tury, has so seized upon everybody and everything that I some- 

 times feel like I have a little myself. But, seriously, I see no other 

 remedy. We must organize and we must fight. Illinois is having 

 the same trouble. At their next State meeting Mr. Perrine will 

 discuss, "Are Apple Growers Getting a Reasonable Proportion of 

 the Selling Price of Their Apples?" They know they are not. 

 Several of them have recently spoken through their papers. No 

 chapters in Political Economy pleased me more than those on Pro- 

 duction, Transportation and Consumption. They were presented 

 in one complete, pleasing whole. But how is it today? A middle 

 man has stepped in between the producer and the transporter, in- 

 nocently called the buyer. He is the speculator, and seems "to 

 stand in with" the transporter, and helps him "to skin the seller at 

 one end and the buyer at the other." How do we know, say you? 

 How else are we to interpret the language of a big buyer in almost 

 an adjoining county, who said, "You little buyers are not in it. I 

 make a greater profit off the railroads in rebates than you'll make 

 on that orchard." 



The questions of refrigeration and transportation have often 

 been before this body, but comparatively little has been done. We 

 could not have been more indifferent if we had a railroad pass in 

 every pocket. Growers in other sections are alive to this issue, 

 and we must be. The Union Pacific and the Santa Fe are now 

 building a large number of refrigerating cars for the California 

 fruit trade. That means something, and you may rest assured that 

 the California growers all understand it. Organization and co- 

 operative work will as certainly bring us relief as it has the cotton 

 grov/ers of the south. They hold their crops for a minimum price, 

 which includes expenses and a reasonable profit. This the spin- 

 ners are willing to give; and the speculator has been quite elimi- 

 nated to the advantage of both planter and spinner. 



I trust the care of No. 2 and all cull apples will receive due 

 attention at this meeting; and I earnestly recommend a careful 

 reading of Judge Patton's paper on this subject at the last Apple 

 Growers' Congress. 



We should adopt a strong, sensible resolution to our Legislature 

 in favor of retaining at least all the protection our present bird, 

 fish and game law affords the farmer and fruit grbwer. 



We should, in my judgment, memorialize the next Congress 

 against the free distribution of garden seeds of common and well 



