SUMMER MEETING AT BROOKFIELD. 123 



here is the return from sales: 3 barrels, lot 1, averaged $2.10 per bar- 

 rel; 3 barrels, lot 2, $1.80 per barrel; 3 barrels, lot 3, 61.40 per barrel. 



Kow here we have a difference of thirty cents a barrel between 

 lots one and two for simply grading the fruit as it should be, and sev- 

 enty cents a barrel between lots one and three. With these facts 

 before us, is it any secret why one man can make money raising fruit 

 while another cannot ? 



If this is not sufficient proof that it pays to handle and put up fruit 

 as it should be, let me state that only a few days ago I was told by the 

 most extensive fruit-grower in this vicinity that Chicago parties deal- 

 ing largely in fruit said to him that they had rather be at the expense 

 of sending their own men to the farmer's orchard and pack his fruit for 

 him, paying him the same price, than to have him do it himself. Yet 

 there is no reason why the farmer cannot put up his own fruit and get 

 what it costs the dealer to send his men to do it, if he will only put it 

 up as it should be; but before he will do this, he must distinctly under- 

 stand that windfalls, fruit that has been shaken from the tcees or 

 bruised in any way, will never bring the highest price, for to sell well 

 it must be put upon the market in an attractive manner. 



There are to-day probably at least 75,000 acres of commercial apple 

 orchards in Missouri, besides those set for family use, the income of 

 which is no paltry sum. 



The annual yield of an apple tree from the eighth year after plant- 

 ing to the twentieth will not be over- estimated if we call it one and 

 one-half barrels. The average price for good winter fruit is not far 

 from $1.50 per barrel ; deducting 35 cents, the price of the barrel, and 

 we have $1.15 for the apples. If the trees are planted thirty-three feet 

 apart we have forty to the acre, giving sixty barrels of fruit ; these at 

 $1.15 per barrel give 869 ; this I think is not an over-estimate. 



One of your secretary's correspondents in Laclede county says 

 that his orchard, planted eleven years ago, has for the last five years 

 given him an annual income of two dollars per tree. He furthermore 

 says that an orchard of forty acres set to Ben Davis after five years 

 planting will pay a greater profit than the best 200-acre larm sown to 

 grain of any kind. 



Another correspondent in Northwest Missouri says that notwith- 

 standing the low prices obtained by the farmers for their apples the 

 past few years, they pay a better net income over cost of production 

 than any other farm crop ; that apples sell from one-half to the full 

 price of wheat per bushel. Xow at 11 barrels or 4 J bushels to the tree 

 and 40 trees to the acre, we have a yield of 180 bushels, which at one- 

 half the price of wheat, would give us the value of 90 bushels of wheat 



