72 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ing apprehension that peach-growing is already overdone, and that no 

 profits may be expected in this vocation hereafter. 



It will be interesting to inquire if this is the case. The total produc- 

 tion of peaches in this country last year, throughout the various peach- 

 growing sections from one ocean to the other, was probably between 

 four and five million bushels. These sections are so situated that a 

 comparatively even distribution of the fruit among all parts of the 

 country and outside of this country is easy and natural. The quantity 

 produced would, if evenly divided among the fourteen million families 

 of five persons each, of our own population, give between one fourth 

 and one third of a bushel to each family. Surely people would con- 

 sume several times this amount if they could get all the peaches they 

 wanted. 



A very important point for us to consider is that we are not properly 

 supplying those markets which naturally belong to us, and our Michi- 

 gan growers are subjected to a great disadvantage on account of this 

 inequality of distribution. Eight at home one has only to go a few 

 miles beyond the borders of the fruitgrowing sections to find numbers of 

 people who use no peaches at all. Pay a visit to some farm house and 

 perchance the good wife may set out as her very best, reserved expressly 

 for company, some small, ill-flavored peaches which she has gathered 

 from some neglected seedling tree left to struggle for existence in some 

 fence corner; but rarely will one find any of our fruit of good quality 

 such as we ship. 



During the last few years I have occasionally met men from different 

 parts of the states of Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and the Dakotas, who 

 have handled fruit, but in the main what they handle is from California 

 and not from Michigan. Only a few weeks ago I chanced to meet a 

 man who carries on a grocery business in a town in central North 

 Dakota. This man sold some California peaches last season which he 

 received from Minneapolis. That fruit was shipped at least twice the 

 distance from Michigan to Minneapolis and then shipped back west to 

 him. Michigan should supply the greater part of the fruit consumed in 

 all of those states as well as those lying south of them; but it is a 

 fact not greatly to our credit that California is supplying by far the 

 greater part. Until Michigan can successfully contest the ground with 

 California at least half way from lake Michigan to the Pacific ocean, 

 we need not consider solved the question of fruit distribution. 



Another matter equal in importance to that of a better distribution of 

 our fruit is that of greater economy in our methods of disposing of it. 

 Probably three fourths of the fruit grown in Michigan has been con- 

 signed to commission dealers in Chicago and Milwaukee. Every one 

 acquainted with business methods must admit that this is a most expen- 

 sive, unsystematic, and unbusinesslike method of disposing of the fruit. 

 The one fact that fruit grown 2,000 miles away is allowed to take such 

 a prominent place in the markets immediately under our noses does 

 not commend the system to us. No other class of business could or 

 would place its pocketbook into the hands of other men without any 

 bond, without anv check or means of knowing whether the amount 

 returned corresponded with the sales, and the fact that our fruit can 



