132 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



sarj to put fruit up in good shape if you expect to compete. It does 

 seem to me that that is along the right line, if we can only get it into 

 thp shape we ought to have it; we ought to co-operate and in an in- 

 telligent way, so we may know from day to day the parties who are 

 demanding our fruit and where the market is glutted, etc. That can 

 all be done if we can systematically organize, and this is the day of 

 organization, and I think we are in the right line. 



Mr. Paulen — This very thing that is proposed is the very thing 

 that our Legislature and even OoDgress has been trying to put down, 

 and that is spelled with just five letters — t-r-u-s-t ; the best way in my 

 opinion for people to do this business is for everyone to put up fruit 

 in the proper way. It is just the way it was when Daniel Webster 

 went to a certain lawyer and asked about studying law, and asked if 

 there was any room, and that lawyer told him there was always room 

 above; that comes under the law of the survival of the fittest. 



Mr. Gilbert — I believe in grading fruit and making it just as nice 

 as possible. If you could grow strawberries as big as that hat and 

 peaches as large as a half bushel basket and had to make a basket to 

 carry each peach in, in the present condition the market is in I do not 

 believe that you could get one-half what it is worth. It seems to me 

 that fruit-growers are just as far from any system for marketing their 

 fruit as the East is from the West. Supposing, Mr. President, that you 

 owned every orchard there is in the State and every fruit plantation 

 of every kind, don't you think you could soon reduce your business 

 to a system ? If you were going to consign fruit to Kansas City would 

 you ship to 4, or 5, or 6, or 8 different houses ? If you owned the whole 

 output of the State of Missouri, how many different places would you 

 ship to in each city ? Just compete with yourself? 



We have now growing in this State a crop of peaches which, if 

 properly handled, we can make some money on them; if the growers 

 will get together and adopt some systematic method for the marketing 

 and distribution of this fruit, and their is no doubt but what the net 

 receipts will be at least one-third more than they can possibly be with- 

 out systematic work. I think the problem of distribution is one of 

 special importance to the fruit-growers of South Missouri, and they 

 should come together now in a meeting and, if possible, adopt some 

 plans of work that we may control the movement of our crop and 

 make something out of it. They are short of peaches in the South 

 and in the East, and they want our fruit, but how do we know where 

 to send it. 



Mr. Evans — This question needs more than anything else, organi- 



