No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 649 



them into size, and then I though if they were to be graded, how 

 wicked and crooked men are, and the only way to get it done was 

 to hire some girls. Women are more lionest than men. So we 

 hired some of the best girls we could get in the neighborhood to 

 grade those peaches into jjroper sizes, so that every package should 

 be honestly graded from top to bottom, and put up rounding full. 

 Then to print a label and put it on the basket. So far as I know, 

 I was the first man in America to properly, honestly grade peaches 

 all the way through and put a label on them, but here was the re- 

 sult, — I have bought labels which cost me 42 cents a thousand, and 

 as soon as I stuck them on a peach basket, I got 50 cents a piece 

 for them. So if Hale ever made any money in the peach business, 

 he made more of it at the start selling labels rather than peaches. 



We have had our troubles in peach growing. The borers are 

 always with us, and probably ever will be, and perhaps the brown 

 rot and the yellows, and the only way to get rid of that is to pull 

 the tree out and burn it, and the borers, to dig them out and smash 

 their heads. Fungus tioubles until a few years ago we couldn't 

 control, and the brown rot finally became so serious that Prof. Scott 

 spent years in its study, and in the different seasons when he was 

 studying in our orchards and i>ropagatiug those cultures in my 

 house in Georgia, it seemed almost a useless task he had undertaken, 

 how year after year he jiatiently plodded on, and finally discovered 

 how to prepare the self boiled lime and sulphur which we now^ use 

 so successful!}', makes it possible to grow some of the commercial 

 peaches in a large way, in sections of the United States where they 

 were driven out of business by the rot, and since his discovery theie 

 has been a Avonderful forward marcli in producing firm, better keep- 

 ing and better colored fruit. Some late varieties are better in color. 

 That rot is now gone, and in going has taken with it a lot of other 

 troubles and brought us profit. The marketing of fruits, the mar- 

 keting of peaches — in the olden days they v.'ere shipped to a few 

 large central markets, and from there distributed within a reason- 

 able distance to other markets, the smaller towns and villages being 

 almost without peaches. There are towns, I suppose, in Pennsyl- 

 vania, of thiee and five and eight thousand inhabitants, that haven't 

 a peach orchard in driving distance of it. But there is a great open- 

 ing there for the sale of fruit, direct to the consumer, in a small 

 way. There is a Avonderful opening all over the country. I live in 

 a farming community, a town of less than 5,000 inhabitants, but 

 they are tobacco farmers, and buy our peaches and we don't have 

 any cost for transportation, and they take the over-ripes, and when 

 we come to figure up at the end of the year, there has been three 

 or four thousand dollars worth of fruit sold at the packing shed. 

 So in every community there are peoj^le who will come and take 

 your fruit away. And no expenses of marketing. 



Then as I said in regard to this small hamper business, when 

 we get the parcels post, we are going to be able to send small pack- 

 ages direct to families and get one package into the house today 

 and another tomorrow, and double the consumption by that method. 

 After we get beyond reaching the consumer direct from our small 

 orchard, the next thing is to reach a little further and sell to the re- 



