FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 117 



$1.50 per bushel to the dealer. He turns them over to the grocery man 

 at a very small profit, and the public is supplied with all the peaches 

 it wants before we get in. This has been also true to quite an extent 

 with apples. Now, how are we to meet these fellows? Send the cold 

 winter down that way, freeze them out ! But the railroads in the south 

 and in the west have sent their agents all over this country and are sell- 

 ing thousands of acres of land through the means of literature and 

 other means, that are to be planted to fruit that will shortly come in 

 competition, and now with that system built up, it looks on the face 

 of it, as though Michigan fruits especially peaches, will not be in it 

 at all. The cellars are filled with canned fruit from the early peaches 

 of the South. But this is working against the southern grower as well 

 as us, and in Georgia they are cutting down many orchards of peaches. 

 One man whom I know, has a son acting as a distributor for him of 

 one of these big Texas deals, said to his father, "Father, don't you put 

 another dollar in that peach orchard enterprise, for if y ou do it will 

 be lost !" The fact was, they lost money on every car of peaches that 

 was shipped out from that great syndicate of peach growers. You also 

 read many wonderful things in the literature from Arkansas as to what 

 can be made out of peaches, but there they have not cleared but a very 

 little over expenses the past year. I wrote for data for peaches, and 

 this is the reply I received. 



"Dear Sir: Your favor of the 5th inst. received. The past season 

 has been very disastrous * * * *." 



I have another letter from Cincinnati that tells much the same story. 

 I will not take time to read that here. 



Well, we have these problems before us, but I believe that they will 

 solve themselves and to a certain extent take care of themselves. What 

 we want to do is to do better work, to take care of our orchards more 

 thoroughly, build up a reputation for our own individual work, which 

 we can do if we do as we should. Of course we have to study varieties. 

 We must get away from this old dingy colored fruit, stick to the high 

 colored varieties of fruit, and there will be no question but that in the 

 long run we will come out all right. 



A Member— Would you encourage young boys like me, with very little 

 knowledge, to plant a new orchard, or would encourage them to take 

 better care of what they already have? 



Mr. Rose — It depends upon what you have. I could not answer that 

 question definitely, but so long as you are one of the boys, I think you 

 could plan on growing a new orchard. 



Well, I think perhaps this is all I have to say and as Mr. W T elch is 

 to follow, I will now give way to him, after which Ave will be glad to 

 answer questions which you may desire to ask, as best we can. 



The Chairman — Mr. Welch is on the program to lead in the discus- 

 sion of this question, and he will now speak. 



Mr. Welch — I listened with considerable interest to all that Mr. Rose 

 has said, and I think that there are problems before us that are of a 

 very serious nature. I am glad that the secretary didn't ask us to solve 

 these problems. The people must do this themselves. 



But the biggest problem that confronts us now, as I look at it, is 

 the one pertaining to the marketing of our fruit. I rather take ex- 

 ceptions to what has been said in regard to a feeling of discourage- 



