122 THE COXXECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



at that time of the year is so much taken that I cannot superin- 

 tend it all, and to put a man in my place that would be able to 

 fill the place without great loss would be almost an impossibility. 



I find too, that all the best consumers have their groceryman 

 who supplies them every day, and all the best grocerymen are 

 depending upon the wholesaler or commission man, and to put 

 one's fruit in against these organized business methods is a 

 pretty difficult and costly matter. What we need is a fruit 

 grower's organization in these days, when ever3^body is organ- 

 ized against the farmer and fruit grower. The trust is against 

 us, to buy our products and then raise the price, making the 

 consumer pay exorbitant prices, and we get no benefit, making 

 millionaires of a few at the expense of the unprotected and 

 helpless many. Also, the labor unions are against us. How 

 can the farmer or fruit grower get along without his twelve- 

 hour day? I say he cannot and have success. And how can 

 we keep the intelligent boys on the farm at work twelve hours 

 when he sees the other fellow off at five o'clock, and loitering 

 around in his good clothes and cigar. These are conditions 

 that are facing us, that we are having to meet, and that are 

 robbing us of our success. Both of these organizations are 

 hostile to the tiller of the soil, as one can readily see. Now, 

 the question is, and it is a broad, wide-open one too, how are 

 we going to meet them and win? It looks to me as if they 

 would both have to go b}' the farmer coming to the front, 

 where he belongs, and managing the matter himself. I speak 

 of this in connection with the subject of fruit growing, as it 

 seems to me that it properly belongs to it. 



I do not grow strawberries simply to get bread and butter, 

 or to have a bank account. I grow them to get the means to 

 help make a man of myself, and coming here and standing 

 before you, and telling you my simple, home-like story of my 

 way, and looking into your bright, happy faces, will go a great 

 ways to help me make a man of myself, which I could not do' 

 were it not for the strawberry business. 



Now, in treating this subject, I have one thing that I think 

 should come in. The fruit grower has to treat with nature 

 and natural things. Now nature is God ; and one to have 

 success must have fellowship with God. This brings us into 

 an open field of glorious things, that when we love God with 



