PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING. 309 



on the whole of it. You can supply them by growing as fine fruit as you 

 <!an, perfectly grown, and let them take the second sizes, that are imper- 

 fect, and you can soil it to them at a fair price. They will pay you as good 

 a price, and a little better; they are not so poor and so willing to 

 €at pig-feed that they will pay twenty-five cents per bushel for some- 

 thing that has not a peck of good fruit in it, when they can get a bushel 

 of thoroughly good fruit for fifty cents; nor are they going hungry, going 

 without cheap fruit, simply because we adopt better methods or take the 

 highest grade and make people pay for it who are able to; they will have 

 more and better fruit under the advanced methods than they have had 

 under the pig-pen methods of the past. 



Professor Tracy: 1 do not wish to be understood for a moment as 

 objecting to this method, but I wish to bring out here, if possible, from 

 some of these practical men, a way by which the great mass of people in 

 our cities can get good fruit. I know they eat good fruit in smaller 

 sizes, in seconds and thirds, and the time will come when they will 

 buy better fruit, and the money for buying better fruit will come from 

 their tobacco bill and their liquor bill and a good many other bills of 

 n kind that would better not be made; but I wish to bring out here, if I 

 can, some way by which it is practicable to put good fruit, not fancy 

 fruit, upon the market at such prices that the laboring classes, the people 

 who have not large incomes, can buy and use it. 



. Mr. Hale: In that line, take our home market, where we are market- 

 ing the best of our Connecticut fruit. Roughly stated, we get for our 

 extras, which are 2f inches or more in diameter, |2 to |2.50 per half- 

 bushel basket; for the No. I's, which are 2| to 2| inches in diameter, 

 and perfect in every way, we can get from $1.2-5 to |1.50 ; for the seconds, 

 which are perfect specimens of peach, thoroughly ripened, but below 

 2^ inches in diameter, sound all the way through, we take half a dollar. 

 You may have a half bushel for fifty cents, or you may have it for $1.25 or 

 $1.50, or you may have to pay |2.50; and by grading it up in that way you 

 bring a higher average to yourselves and bring a lower-price good fruit 

 to the people who can not pay the higher prices. They get more for their 

 money under this method than they did under the old. But, bless you! 

 gentlemen, it is not the millionaire, it is not the man with a big income 

 that buys the most good fruit, by any means; the biggest souls and the 

 broadest spirits are in the great body of the common people and the work- 

 ing classes. They may be a little dirty, they may be a little, as our friend 

 says, unwashed, on the outside, but they are clean within and they 

 appreciate good fruit. 



The President: I want to ask Mr. Hale if, under improved methods, 

 the first-class fruit can be grown as cheaply, so that the grower himself 

 can produce it as cheaply, as the poor fruit is produced under ordinary 

 methods? I ask this because so many people believe they can not afford 

 this expense, and 1 want to ask if it is not grown just as cheaply per 

 bushel, that which is thoroughly first-class, under improved methods, 

 as what we get under the ordinary method. 



Mr. Hale: I believe it can be produced cheaper; that the production 

 will be cheaper. It may cost a little more to market it, but the pro- 

 duction is cheaper. There is no question but the close, tireless attention 

 to it all the time will produce the fruit at a less cost per bushel. It is 



