FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 123 



grades of apples sent to the cities, then perhaps we can tell you how to 

 rent orchards and realize the ideals we had when we were more en- 

 thusiastic than we are today. But the fever will be on again as soon 

 as we are a little rested from harvesting the crop. The possibilities are 

 great, the opportunity is greater and the orchards in the grain-growing 

 sections of Michigan will be saved only by men who make a specialty 

 of orchard work. 



Not out of place to mention the fact that better roads would greatly 

 reduce our expenses both to haul the fruit and moving. 



Compulsory spraying would be a protection from uncared for orchards. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Farrand — I think that Mr. Pullen has done very well indeed. 

 (Applause.) 



Some one has said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I 

 should like to shake hands with the author of that statement, for he 

 is right. That is what I have learned. One of the things I have learn- 

 ed is that when a man owns an orchard he could, if he would, work that 

 orchard at half the expense that I can do it, and while that might be 

 a loss to me, it would mean a profit to him. 



Another thing I have learned is that while we try to profit by the 

 experience we have had this year by preparing to meet the same con- 

 tingency next year, that contingency doesn't happen, but something 

 else does happen. It don't make any difference how long we have been 

 in the business, in spite of our experience, something always happens 

 to bump. While prices were good the first two or three years of our 

 business, the last two years they have been low and poor. 



Then, I have learned a lot about human nature. What I have had 

 to contend with in the orchard renting business in five years has given 

 me an experience that I would not learn in twenty-five years handling 

 the crop of my own orchard. 



The help problem is perhaps as great as any of the problems we have 

 to contend with. It is a large amount of experience that one gets 

 along these lines that you never meet at your back door. Then, you 

 have everything to do with. But in the renting proposition the one 

 great problem is how to get things done against obstacles. Obstacles 

 will arise that you never thought of, never even dreamed of, and you 

 must meet them when they come — you can't prepare for them ahead 

 of time. You may prepare for them ahead of time and then they won't 

 happen. I have learned that what happens in one year in ail prob- 

 ability will not happen next, and yet it may. That what will be profit- 

 able one year will not prove profitable the next in the handling of our 

 crop or in different lines. In getting all things done as they should 

 be one often has to think quickly. 



When you are away from home, the sleeping problem, the barrel- 

 ing problem, and all these things, the team work especially and then 

 the men in different orchards, working at the same time — why you can't 

 be with them all, especially when you branch out considerably — these 

 are all problems that we have to deal with and they are oftentimes 

 more perplexing and harder to solve than you might imagine. There 

 are so few people who will really work for your interests, but we have 



