434 ANNUAL REPORT OE; THE Off. Doc. 



low to be profitable to the grower. The grower had little choice, 

 he could either sell to the buyer at the ofter made or keep his fruit. 

 Local markets were full. Unless put into storage, the fruit would 

 rot, but when the grower applied for storage at many plants he 

 usually found tlie space already engaged. Thus, little was left for 

 him to do but to go back to the buyer and sell at the latter's own 

 terms. Contrasted with conditions in many of the apple growing 

 districts was the fact that any ri])e eating apple was retailing in 

 the larger cities at a price equal to the average of other years. 



VALUE OF CROP 



AVhile there are no means al hand at this early date to state 

 accurately the value of this year's crop, it can be very safely esti- 

 mated at twice that of last year, from which the grower received 

 little larger gross returns than last year and that he received even 

 less net returns than for a crop half the size the year before. 



One of the things lacking in fruit growing, is a better organiza- 

 tion, not for the purpose of overcharging the consumer, but for the 

 purpose of better distribution, as it often occurs that one market is 

 overstocked with fruit while another is wanting a supply. This 

 would perhaps ease the city house wife's mind, as she cannot under- 

 stand why the fruit growers are not all rich when she considers 

 the enormous price she pays for fruit. 



EEPOIIT OF THE COMMITTEE ON POULTKY 



By W. THEO. WITTMAN, Chairman 



Probably the most outstanding feature of the poultry situation 

 within the State for the last year is the continued enormous in- 

 crease of the amount of poultr}' kept by suburbanites, by villages 

 and by city people. Practically, this is all pure bred poultry too. 

 All of which has up to this time been reflected only in a very slight de- 

 gree as regards poultry on our farms. However, already wher^^ver 

 there is a farm in the State that b}' its buildings, by its crops, and 

 by its four-footed stock shows that its owner is progressive, tbcrt- 

 is sure to be ])ure-bred poultry and pure-bred poultry only. And 

 the time is ra])idly coming when at least most of the farms within 

 the State will have reached at least that progressive stage in poultry 

 keeping that only ]>ure-bred flocks will be found. 



Never before have the exhiljits of poultry at the fall fairs been as 

 large or so many local poultry shows been held, as this winter.. 

 Never before has the poultry press been so active; it being not un- 

 usual for one poultry paper to have hundreds and even thousands ^ 

 of subscribers in one county. The Philadelphia and Pittsburg Sun- 

 day papers continue to. carry pages of all sorts of poultry adver- 

 tising, where only a |©w years ba.c^ tV^ey carried ia.cha^. Also farm' 



