116 NEBRASKA, STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



especially apples, that will be known all over the country. Now the 

 subject assigned to me is one with which I am somewhat familiar. 



It is the advisability of fruit growers' associations in the Missouri 

 valley. I have prepared a paper, but it is not quite as long as Mr, Van 

 Houten's. My vocabulary is not as extensive as his, or at least my idea 

 of words to be used, so I had to cut it short. 



The subject which has been assigned to me is of such great impor- 

 tance that I have not the temerity to theorize upon it; therefore, I will 

 merely offer a few observations of facts that have come to my notice 

 during the thirty years that I have been actively interested in horticultural 

 production where I live. 



Fruit growing is full of uncertainties and hazards: the destructive 

 freeze of winter, the springtime late frosts, the midsummer drouth, the 

 fall of hail, the ravages of insects, and last, to my mind the greatest of all, 

 the uncertainty of the market. We may escape the freeze and drouth, 

 prevent the frost, insure against the hail, and destroy the insects, but 

 unless we can secure a market and reach it with our perishable commod- 

 ity in good condition our plans go for naught, and we have nothing to 

 pocket but a net loss. 



The elimination of these hazards is the constant study of horticulture. 

 It is the last one upon which I am to treat. In the first place, our knowl- 

 edge of the market is limited to the experience and observation of the 

 individual who produces the crops. Some people like plums, some like 

 strawberries; none of us know how many like the one or the other, and 

 we know but little of what is being done by other growers to supply the 

 demand for the one or the other. Furthermore, we know very little of 

 what competition our produce will meet with in the produce of other 

 parts of the country, and so we plant without adequate knowledge of the 

 demand and produce fine fruit, but who wants it when every one has had 

 enough? We find to our sorrow the difference between a hungry buyer and 

 one who has had his wants satisfied. And so, as very often happens, 

 our local market is oversupplied and the surplus is sent to the larger 

 cities. What is the result? The hazards in shipment of perishable fruit 

 are great and the responsibility of the buyer often questionable. More- 

 over, the care which one who has no financial interest in our fruit dis- 

 plays is very different from the interest of the grower who has expended 

 his hard labor to produce it. 



And so with prices slaughtered the margin of profit is decreased, and 

 the natural impulse of the grower is to secure large production, for with- 

 out it he can not hope to secure an adequate return, and in the mad rush 

 to produce large quantities, the market is still further demoralized and 

 quality is sacrificed because in the great oversupply of cheap stuff it would 

 not be recognized, and the public turns to ether sources of supply to 

 satisfy its wants. The result is that the grower frequently becomes dis- 

 gusted with his venture, plows up his commercial fruit, or neglects it, 

 and directs his energies to other crops. As a result of the conditions 

 above set out, a commercial organization of fruit growers is absolutely 

 essential to any community which produces fruit extensively for the 



