THE SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 233 



heads of families, and as many more single men and women, most for eight 

 months, in fact, the average number that we give employment to, including 

 pickers, from April 1st to December Ist, is thirty-five to forty persons, thus 

 giving means for support to at least seventy-five to one hundred persons besides 

 our own family. He pays to help say ^400 per year. We pay at least 

 $G,000 per year. He sells from his farm, say 81,500 to 81,800 yearly, gross. 

 We, 815,000 to 818,000 (which includes our plant trade). He plows, harrows, 

 sows, reaps, draws into the barn, threshes, cleans, and draws to market the 

 product of an acre, say an average of fifteen bushels of wheat, for which he 

 obtains gross, say ^'iO. We plow, harvest, plant, cultivate, hoe, gather and 

 market from an acre an average of fifty bushels of fruit, for which we obtain 

 gross, say 8150, saying nothing of the plants sold from the same. He and his 

 help work from five o'clock in the morning till dark ; our help work from 7 A. 

 M., to 6 P. M. He tugs, lifts, and sweats. We don't. "Small business," 

 isn't it, reader? — A. M. Furdy, Falmyra, JVeiu York. 



PROFITS— KEAL AND PEOSPEOTIVE. 



GROWING APPLES FOR THE NORTHWEST. 



The following letter from Samuel L. Fuller of Grand Rapids is full of mean- 

 ing to Michigan orchardists who complain that there is a dark future for fruit 

 growers in our State : 



Secretary Garfield: 



My Dear Sir. — I have traveled during the past summer over the ''New 

 Northwest," so far as passing north from Grand Rapids to Mackinaw and 

 Sault Ste. Marie, west to Duluth via the iron and copper mines ; thence farther 

 west to and up the Yellowstone, returning to Fargo and thence north to Win- 

 nepeg, and west in Manitoba to Post on La Prairie, and from Winnepeg south 

 to St. Paul and Milwaukee and home. 



After leaving the southern peninsula of Michigan there is no evidence that 

 either apples, peaches, or pears can be grown, if you except the crab apple- 

 There is talk of the ironclad apples that are to be the apples of the future, — 

 yet to be produced, or imported from the cold regions of Russia or other parts 

 of the eastern continent. I traveled with an intelligent nurseryman who was 

 selling trees; he only recommended crabs for apples. In addition to the crab 

 apple trees he was selling bushes and vines of small fruits. I met others who 

 spoke confidently of what they were to grow, and who were investing in differ- 

 ent kinds of trees, including our usual varieties. I found that the real knowl- 

 edge of such persons was what the tree peddler had told them, and I found 

 that the peddler had told tliem what they wanted to hear. One man in partic- 

 ular expected to get fruit from his Northern Spy trees in three years from the 

 setting out. 



