Notes hy the Secretary. 65 



which have made this possible. The tides of our fruit commerce 

 in this valley flow north warth and southward rather than along 

 lines of latitude ; and our markets should in many cases, and for 

 large quantities, be found a thousand miles or more away from the 

 place of production. As this transportation along north and south 

 lines involves rapid changes of climate, it becomes of the utmost 

 importance that appliances for this traffic should be of the best 

 possible character. That rapid transit should be afforded by the 

 important through lines, and that beyond and outside of the 

 facilities offered on passenger trains, would seem essential to the 

 profitable expansion of this business to meet the growing demands 

 of our markets. 



But when we have arranged all these matters of markets and 

 packages, of handling and transportation in a satisfactory way 

 according to the best business principles, shall we not soon find 

 ourselves lacking in the quality of the products we have to offer to 

 the consumers ? I fear that our most serious difficulty as fruit 

 growers will be foi^nd right here. We have, perhaps, plenty of 

 varieties, and those that are good enough for our markets, when we 

 can get them ; but the difficulty of securing good and regular 

 crops becomes more and more apparent as time goes on. In the 

 process of horticultural development, our accomplishments in the 

 production of the utmost variety of fruits, with size and form and 

 color and flavor to please every eye and every taste at all seasons, 

 has far outstripped our ability to protect them from the vicissitudes 

 of extreme climates, and from the insects and diseases which 

 attack them in all climates. We enter here a domain of too much 

 ignorance. 



The peach grower of Michigan knows varieties as delicious and 

 tempting as the apples in the garden of Eden, and he knows how 

 to grow them and market them, and make great profit thereby ; 

 but he finds himself defeated by the rapid spread of an obscure 

 disease that has attacked his costly and valuable property. He 

 cannot, with his present knowledge, combat the dreaded "yellows,'^ 

 except by the destruction of the property itself. The man has no 

 choice but surrender. For this serious trouble we must wait for 

 scientific research to give us a remedy. The strawberry grower of 

 Southern Illinois, having overcome all the common enemies to his 

 crop, and carried it forward to within a week or two of profitable 

 harvest, suddenly finds his promising acres in complete possession of 

 myriads of a destructive little insect too insignificant to have at- 

 tracted his attention. The strawberry grower is powerless before 



