558 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE ■ Off. Doc. 



VARIETIES OF FKUIT BEST ADAPTED TO COLD STORAGE. 



By GEO. H. JlcKAr. Philadelphia. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I assure you it is a pleas- 

 ure £or me to meet with the fruit growers of Pennsylvania. Prob- 

 ably I am one of the oldest men present here, although younger in 

 years than many of you, who commenced to raise fruit. I raised 

 ifruit in Maine in 1869, and those trees are still bearing fruit — they 

 are spraying them. I don't know what they are using, but if they 

 lived in Pennsylvania they would certainly have their choice of the 

 different things to spray with. 



As you all know, the management and control of fruit has changed 

 wonderfully in the past few years, and one of the important ques- 

 tions that presents itself to large growers of fruits is the question 

 of supplying the people with fruit in the most satisfactory manner, 

 the people in the cities particularly, and how to store away better 

 fruits for these people. One of the prominent necessities was found 

 to be the establishment of cold storage plants, and in that business 

 I have had about twenty years' experience in keeping different food 

 products for the people of Philadelphia and other places. 



The keeping of apples iu» cold storage is only one of the many 

 things that can be kept in refrigeration, and if you could visit one 

 of those large plants established for that purpose, even larger than 

 the Terminal Cold Storage plant at Philadelphia, you would find 

 almost everything raised, not only in the United States but in the 

 world, is kept in cold storage, from the simple fact that if a large 

 supper is given by a millionaire, or any one else that can afford it, 

 they often want a variety of things at a season of the year when 

 they are not growing, and that which comes the highest they want 

 the most, hence immense quantities are being stored for the people 

 in the cities. 



The market that I have the pleasure of being connected with 

 covers a block, a space of 350,000 feet being given over to cold 

 storage. We have stored there at the present time some thirty 

 thousand barrels of apples which were raised in Pennsylvania, Dela- 

 ware and New York. We do not store many of the Western apples; 

 as a general thing they come in crates and do not keep very well 

 with us, although I suppose they have their market for them and do 

 store them in the West. 



I wrote something on this subject but it seems to me that Mr. 

 Hale, Mr. P»rown and some others copied my speech and as they have, 

 gone over this ground so thoroughly it is almost impossible for me 

 to add much to what has already been said. However, I desire to 

 say that in order for a fruit grower or a farmer who raises fruit, 

 to make any money out of the products of his farm or orchard it is 

 necessary to have a good market. You gentlemen know that we 

 all have had experience with the commission man, and we have 

 said that we got little return from him. To a great extent this 



