290 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



beautiful things of that kind go hand in hand, and the people wha 

 appreciate beautiful flowers also appreciate beautiful fruits. They buy 

 them and eat them, and they must be of fine appearance and the perfec- 

 tion of their kind, and those people are increasing rapidly in nearly every 

 section of our country, and their buying power is increasing, and it is to 

 cater to the taste of those people that we peach-growers of the future 

 must come, and the sooner we come to a realizing sense that there is a 

 great body of people in this country, that is rapidly growing in numbers 

 and in purchasing power, who are ready to buy only the finest produc- 

 tions of the orchard and vineyard, and demand that it reach them in a 

 fresh, thoroughly ripened condition, in the neatest and most attractive 

 manner possible, the sooner we will get our reward, and of course it is 

 the reward we are after, in the end, although too many of us go into the 

 business for the mere hurried-dollar or nimble-sixpence idea of getting 

 the dollar just as easily and as quickly as we can, regardless of methods; 

 and it usually results in getting less money than we anticipated. We 

 need a love for the business and an appreciation of what the public 

 wants, and then an ability to develop the fruit up somewhere near to that 

 demand. We should not rush into simply the planting of acres, or of 

 getting the bushels into the market, regardless of other things which are 

 going to give us the great reward; and we have in the past slipped up on 

 that dreadfully. 



Some one was telling me, within your own state, within a month, that he 

 thought (and he was a well-informed gentleman) that the average peach 

 crop of the state of Michigan, this year, had not ijaid a great deal more 

 than other common farm crops, have paid. It surely is a better business 

 than that if rightly handled. 



Now, I hardly think that I can ramble around on this general subject 

 without, perhaps, being a little too personal, which I would rather not be. 

 The first thing, it seems to me, to be considered by a successful fruitgrow- 

 er of the present or the future, is the man or woman, because it is a busi- 

 ness in which a woman can well engage if she has the capacity and the 

 love of it; the first thing to be considered is not soil nor climate nor mar- 

 kets, nor anything but men — men who have this love of choice fruits in 

 their hearts, and an appreciation of what the public wants, the nerve and 

 the courage to stay b}^ the trees and the markets year in and year out, re- 

 gardless of results, simply keeping everlastingly at it, according to the 

 best lines — bright and thorough as they may be, and ever ready to learn 

 from another, whether he be bright or stupid, because (remember this) we 

 are always learning, and there is just as much opportunity to learn from 

 our neighbor who makes a failure as there is from the other fellow who 

 makes a success. It pays to keep our eyes open, to observe all we can, 

 and at the same time be willing to give information to others. He must 

 not be a selfish man, he must not be a narrow man, he must be a 

 man who is perfectly willing to give out all he has. There 

 are no good secrets in good, honest, lovable horticulture. Be free! 

 If you have any good ideas in production, in marketing, give them 

 out. The old saying w^as, which I didn't quite believe, that it 

 was better to give than to receive, but as I grow older I find that it meang 

 a great deal, and the more we can give out, of good thoughts and good 

 work and good ideas, in this horticultural line, the more will come unto 



