296 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to the apple trade, aud has decreased the demand for apples, and 

 glutted markets more than any other one thing. 



The grower should learn and understand that he cannot get and 

 must not expect the higher prices of years ago, when wheat was sell- 

 ing three-fold higher than today, neither should the dealer expect to 

 make the profits of those days. All this is necessary to reach the 

 great consumers, the common laboring masses, who consume the larg- 

 est quantity of apples. We should endeavor to place them within 

 their reach, so they can afford to buy them throughout the year, and 

 put apples in their and their children's dinner pails freely, and in that 

 way we will open a demand, which otherwise we cannot reach. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



This seems to include all the troubles and vexations known to 

 mankind. The greater part of the apple shipping season it is either 

 too hot or too cold, too much fruit or none at all, etc. No one can 

 fully appreciate this unless he has been in the apple shipping business, 

 trying to find a market for perishable fruit with the thermometer at 

 about one hundred in the shade, with all the principal markets over- 

 stocked and glutted. 



Our apples mature within about three months' time, and to dis- 

 tribute this crop over all of the twelve months in the year, which we 

 should do in the future, will require much intelligent labor and good 

 management as well as the investment of much capital. 



Cold storage and other methods of keeping fruit, properly con- 

 structed fruit cars, cheap and rapid transportation, etc., are indispen- 

 sable for the successful handling of and marketing of apples in the 

 future. But to attain this it is necessary that we should follow and 

 encourage specialties of occupation. 



The fruit-grower, to do this work well, so as to reap the largest 

 returns from his orchard, will find all of the work for his energy, mind 

 and body to master that special calling. He will have no time to look 

 up the markets and reach the consuming masses, to look after cold 

 storage and other requirements of distribution. 



It is my firm conviction that the future apple market will depend 

 for its fullest efficiency and effect upon the proper, wisest and most 

 economical distribution, and this can only be done through large plants 

 of invested capital, whether it be cold storage, canning factories, 

 evaporators, cider mills, distilleries, vinegar, jelly or other factories, 

 any one of which is a business of itself, and to make them efficient 

 and profitable, and to keep up with the requirements of the trade, will 

 require the employment of much capital, skilled labor, intelligent man- 

 agement, and careful studying of specialties. Ohas. C. Bell. 



