19J: STATE HORTICULTURAL S»)CIETY. 



PRESIDENT MORRILL'S ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



For long shipments of fruit we must have a better package than we 

 have been using, and it does seem as if by some means we should be able 

 to break the combination formed against us last spring by which they 

 elevated the price of packages twenty-five per cent, in the face of one of 

 the heaviest crops and in the hardest times we have seen for years. I think 

 by starting in time we can do so. I am not going into details, but you 

 have various associations over the state which must take care of their 

 local business, but the State societv's business is to assist in everv wav 

 possible in making our conditions better, and that is one of the methods 

 by which we could assist. The price of packages in which peaches and 

 grapes are shipped was raised by the combination from 15 to 25 per cent., 

 and the sales have been enormous and the profits have gone almost 

 entirely on the general fruit crop — I would s-aj almost entirely — to the 

 package and transportation people. There is something there for us to 

 consider, and we must go at it with a spirit that means something. We 

 must not meet and discuss these things now and go away from here 

 declaring that everything is wrong but we are.not prepared to join with 

 our neighbors to try to right the wrong. We have the power, we can do it 

 if we see fit. 



The question of distribution is another matter of which you have sorely 

 felt the need this summer. It is only fair to sa.y that our distribution 

 is very much better than it was two or three years ago. It is being 

 rapidly improved. You people at Grand Kapids have done more than 

 those of any other locality in the state. They have a shipping associa- 

 tion here whose work has accomplished a great deal. I think it has 

 accomplished wonders, for the poor support it has received from the 

 fruitgrowers of Kent county. I am only talking to the men who do not 

 support it, and I wish to say to any man present who groAvs an acre 

 of fruit and has not taken an active interest, a financial interest, in this 

 fruitgrowers' association, I am heartilv ashamed of vou. I think it is 

 wrong, I am satisfied, although I can not prove it, that the operation of 

 that association for two or three months this year put a thousand dollars 

 into the hands of the fruitgrowers of this locality every day, and possibly 

 twice that. I presume that is a low estimate. How does it come that 

 the papers read here today show that that association has such a limited 

 membership? A few men have to put up whatever money is furnished. 

 There is some expense; they are not working for salaries, but there is 

 correspondence, stationery, rent of oflice roo)n, perhaps, and some inci- 

 dental expense, not much, and that is all that the fruitgrowers are asked 

 'to pay for. But how" man}- do it? They tell me it is but a handful, they 

 who have developed this market at Grand Ra]iids. and you know you have 

 the V)cst market in the state. In my own town, which perhajis ships more 

 fruit of all kinds than you do here, we have never succeeded in getting 

 such a market svstem as vou have, and this verv market svstem has 

 brought the buyers to you, has taken away the dissatisfaction of com- 

 mission dealers, and has given the money to you for your fruit the same 

 day you delivered it; and it goes into circulation the same day and has 

 been worth thousands and thousands of dollars to j'ou. 



