No. 7. DEPARTMiENT OF AGRICULTURE, 529 



they should consider it very carefully, or decide what market they 

 are going to ship to and put them in the commercial cold storage 

 houses in that citv. 



Cold storage is getting to be a scientific question of the day; it is 

 a matter of not only the low temperature but even temperature 

 and dry temperature, that possibly, we, as individuals, back on 

 the orchards or on the farm might not be able to control. 



I don't know of anything more I can say on this subject this morn- 

 ing. I thank for your courtesy. 



THE PRESIDENT.— Mr. Hale, we would be very glad to have you 

 .open this discussion. 



MR. HALE. — I think it is pretty well open already. 1 don't think 

 there is anything more to be said only 1 would like to emphasize 

 what I said before; that was, and it is a point Mr. Wertz did not 

 touch on, this picking of apples when they are ready to pick and not 

 all at one time. If we should grow tomatoes for the market or the 

 family supply, when they begin to color we all know we go and 

 pick the first ripe tomatoe, and we doo't let them go on there 

 until they are all ripe and decay in order to pick them at one time. 

 No, we go there day by day and gather them as they mature. We 

 also go day by day and pick our cautelopes and gather them as 

 they mature, and sometimes we do that at diiferent timc'S in the 

 same day, with both melons and cantelopes, because some are ripe 

 in the afternoon that are not ripe in the forenoon. But the apples, 

 the best of oar fruits, we mostly let the first that mature go, and 

 gather them when the last matures. We must gather our apples 

 when they mature, even if it means one, two, three, four or live 

 pickings. We must do it and tlie people who buy them must pay 

 for the job. I know that this will strike some of you with wonder 

 and amazement. 



We must have the tree down low so as to reduce the cost of the 

 thinning. These are not new ideas but business ideas, and as Mr. 

 Wertz said, it looks to me as though the orchard proposition of 

 America, that is, supplying these eighty millions ul; people with 

 fruit, will drift into the hands of fewer people because those fewer 

 people will see the necessity of taking up these subjects and treat- 

 ing them properly because it will pay, while the smaller planter 

 will say, if it means two or three sprayings a year and means the 

 thinning of the fruit and two or three pickings, I am down and out. 

 As a matter of fact you have to put those additional things on it 

 or you will go bankrupt in the way of growing your apples. If 

 you grow apples for your family supply do it the old way, but the 

 markets will say, stay at home with your fruit. I have seen on the 

 Boston market over two dollars a bushel paid for apples that were 

 grown by our competitors three thousand miles away, and they 

 paid enormous rates, but they could afford to pay the freight on 

 the apples. They followed the pruning methods; they followed the 

 thinning methods, and the spraying methods, not once or twice, but 

 a dozen of times. I have known apples over there that have been 

 sprayed three or four times. Each individual apple had to be per- 

 fect and they wipe off every one, but that takes time, work and 

 expense. Who pays for it? Those men who buy them in Harris- 

 burg and other places. Those are the kind of apples that pay. I 



34—7—1906. 



