PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUMMER MEETING. 149 



Mr. Morrill : It has been Intimated that this is a State Horticultural 

 society and not a local affair. I would like every one to understand what 

 we conceive to be the duty of the State Horticultural society. It is an 

 organization which is supposed to be advancing the interests of the 

 locality where it meets, and to do its best to assist the growers there, and 

 to provide the best information we can secure, by inviting people fitted 

 for this purpose, from all over the state. We are just as heartily in 

 s^'mpath}^ with your interests here as we would be with those of Grand 

 Kapids or Oceana county if we were there. That is the mission of the 

 state society. Of course, I am a resident here, but many of these other 

 gentlemen who are giving suggestions may be doing it to the detriment 

 of their particular society. Mr. Keid has a letter here from Mr. Barnett, 

 a pretty level-headed fellow generally, and he may have something to 

 suggest. 



Mr. Eeid: It seems very strange, when they can maintain organi- 

 zations in California and New York successfully, that such ventures in 

 Michigan seem to be largely failures; and while they have a measure of 

 success at Grand Rapids they are yet in the infancy of what they will 

 probably be able to do. This matter has been discussed here, ever since 

 I first heard Mr. Smith talk, and that is ten or twelve years ago, and 

 very little has been done. I don't expect much to be done until men are 

 compelled to resort to this means. So long as peaches sold at $2 or $3 per 

 bushel, men were willing to pay fifty cents express charges, but the 

 time is coming when a gradual reduction of margins will compel people 

 to resort to sales through organization. I sent Mr. Barnett a copy of the 

 programme of this meeting. He sent his excuse for his inability to attend, 

 and then wrote as follows: 



Commerce may be defined as "the excliange of merchandise on a larjie scale 

 between different places or communities; extended trade or traffic." Without 

 merchandise there can be no exchange; without the means of transportation of 

 that merchandise from one place to another, there can be no exchange. The two 

 elements are indispeusible, and the relations they bear each other are so close 

 that the success of the producer of merchandise often depends on the quality and 

 cost of transportation of his products to the point of consumption. 



Manufactured articles, when the cost of the manufacture or labor has been a 

 large factor in the production, as a rule can bear a heavier rate of carriage 

 than raw material, so that the matter of transportation is not so important in 

 many lines as it is in the branch of commerce the National League of Commission 

 Merchants represent. 



Dealing largely in the products of the soil, that are practically "raw mate- 

 rial." the cost of transportation often determines whether it is profitable to 

 produce an article. 



No matter how prolific the soil, nor with what ease a given product can be 

 grown, if the cost of placing it on the market exceeds largelj' a fair proportion 

 of the price realized, the venture will surely be unprofitable. And that this is 

 a reasonable and common-sense view of the subject, an illustration will show. 



Suppose we take the item of apples, and the city of St. Louis as a market. 

 Let us assume that ^2.25 is the market value of a barrel of apples weighing one 

 hundred and fifty pounds net. From a point 200 miles in any direction, on a 

 trunk line of raiiway, it is fair to assume that a freight rate of 1G% cents per 

 hundred pounds is the ruling rate, or 2.5 cents per barrel, or $40 per carload 

 for a minimum weight of 24,000 pounds. 



It will be admitted by most producers that a price equaling 83 cents per 

 hundred pounds for the fruit at home will be profitable. 



