76 Second Annual Report 



when commission men were regarded as thieves. The men who 

 packed the apples had no particular confidence they were going 

 to get anything for them when they shipped them. The trade 

 was not settled. The shippers did not trust the sellers, and vice 

 versa. I think you will agree with me that the situation is much 

 better as regards Vermont, and I believe in all apple growing 

 districts. The shippers have more confidence in the sellers, and 

 that is a change which I believe is very important, perhaps 

 one of the most important. 



Foreign trade — Another change relates to the foreign trade. 

 We shipped last year to Europe something like three million bar- 

 rels of apples ; five percent more than ever before. This year we 

 won't come up to that. That foreign trade can be greatly enlarged. 

 Out of all that shipment nine-tenths of the fruit went to the 

 British Isles, a country supplied from other sources. Germany 

 and France and Central Europe are to be supplied. Some of 

 it. especially Central Germany, is an apple growing country, 

 the land is as good as in Grand Isle ; they have the sunshine 

 and the soil, but they don't seem to know how to grow apples 

 commercially. They don't know how to plant an orchard and 

 bring it up to commercial development, though I can't see any 

 reason for it. If I had the money I would go to Central Ger- 

 many rather than to Grand Isle. There is a market already 

 waiting; and fruit grows there in profusion. 



I would not preach so long a sermon without pointing a 



moral. There are practical applications to what I have said, I 



hope. I hope you will realize after we have gone over all these 



things and have seen how these different things have changed in 



the last eight or ten years — not in fifty or sixty years — but in the 



last ten years, these great changes have come, I think you will 



realize when you think of it, that these changes did not stop 



last year, nor this year — they are going on, perhaps more rapidly 



in the future than in the past. It means we have got to hustle 



to keep up with the procession, and that we must be watchful 



every moment, to know what all the improvements are, and work 



them out on your own farms, or we are going to get left. You 



can pick out twenty-five men in every neighborhood that have 



got left. They may be all right running for the Legislature or 



something of that kind, but no good in growing apples. I 



suppose there are horticulturists that come here year after year 



to keep up to date,, and if you go back ten years in the history 



of the society you will see it has meant something to you, and 



has meant something to your neighborhood. It doesn't seem, 



sometimes, that anything has been accomplished, only to have a 



good time, to get acquainted and feel more friendly with the 



members, and after all, when you get home and the cow kicks 



