142 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



have not in this country reached anything like the limit of 

 our possibilities of the high price for first class fruit. 



I can not help but be interested in the German and French 

 people and the markets of Europe. If we think that |15 a 

 box which they have gotten for their fruit is high, for some of 

 the northwestern grown apples |G to $8 a basket is still higher 

 in proportion. Let us see what can be done in London. Some 

 sell for such prices that they get 50 cents and 75 cents apiece 

 for a single apple of a fancy grade. And to show you the 

 difference betAveen the monev that can be made out of the 

 best grade of fruit properly packed and the poorer grade im- 

 properly packed, I give yow the tigures from one German 

 grower of fancy apples. His best grade from his orchard of 

 320 trees averaged in weight sometliing like % of a pound, 

 and his fourth grade averaged just about one-half as large as 

 his highest grade apples. His highest gi'ade netted him for 

 a period of years 72 cents apiece in our money in the markets 

 of Paris, Berlin, and London, while his fourth gTade apples 

 averaging in weight less than half a pound brought him a 

 fraction below 5 cents apiece. The apples weighing one-half 

 as much brought him one- fourteenth as much in price. Two 

 of the fourth grade contained the same weight as the highest 

 grade and those two apples brought 10 cents or a fraction less, 

 while one of the highest grade weighing as much as the two 

 of the fourth grade brought 72 cents. 



Those people have worked up the sale of the highest grade 

 apples to a price we never dreamed of getting in this country. 

 Who are the buyers of these apples? Most of them go to the 

 American tourists, the most particular people on the face 

 of the earth. They will pay 75 cents for an apple and these 

 same people will come back home and expect to pay 75 cents 

 a box for them. AMiy? I>ecause these people have learned 

 that if they can get a perfectly beautiful luxury they want 

 it, and they want it in this country too. 



I was down in West Virginia about a month ago in one of 

 the leading fruit districts. In a section where oil, and coal 



