12 



OUR POPULATION 



outside the large cities is largely composed of native bom, 

 though here and there may be found an occasional settlement 

 of the better class of Germans or Swedes engaged in agricul- 

 ture, than whom it would be hard to find better farmers or 

 more quiet and industrious citizens. 



The tendency of population both here and in Europe is to- 

 ward the large cities. Our young men leave the farm to en- 

 gage in trade or manufacturing, turning the producer into the 

 consumer. Many deplore this, but what would be the result 

 to the farmer and fruit grower if the stream was reversed and 

 the denizens of the city bought farms and became producers? 

 The increase of population in the cities, either large or small, 

 creates an increased demand for farm products, and it is our 

 object to increase the production so as to cover all demands, as 

 well as to cheapen the methods of production, of marketing 

 and of preserving, so as to return an increased profit to the 

 grower. It is not so much the high prices that make fruit 

 growing profitable as the steady demand at reasonable prices, 

 with every expenditure of production reduced to the minimum. 



AN IDEAL STATE. 



If it were possible to develop an ideal state, it would be 

 one in which the producer and the consumer would be brought 

 into immediate relations with each other and thereby dispense 

 with the services of all middlemen. Such a state will, how- 

 ever, never exist except in the brain of some would-be reformer 

 or romantic writer, for the very obvious reason that things are 

 as they are. In practical life the more diversified the industries 

 of a country the more profit to its people. On the one hand 

 we see this exemplified in the great grain growing states 

 of the West, where a failure of the grain crops entails a long 

 list of calamities; on the other hand, states in which there is 

 a more diversified industry, may suffer from a total loss of 

 some crop and yet have an abundance of other wares to sell to 

 prevent any great distress. 



It is also better exemplified in the two countries of Great 

 Britain and France. With a superficial area of about the same 





