118 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The address was referred to a committee consisting of J. W. True^ 

 H. W. Brown and C. H. George. At the winter meeting the com- 

 mittee reported as follows : 



OUR NEED OF ORGANIZATION. 



By J. AV. True, New Gloucester. 



It is needless for me to take up your time in trying to prove that 

 united effort in any given direction to accomplish any definite results 

 can be done in very much less time, than as though each individual 

 was working on a plan of his own, even if that plan was to work out 

 the same desired result. Whenever a condition exists that tends to 

 affect the interests unfavorably of any considerable number of people, 

 especially in this free country of ours, the subject begins to be 

 agitated, talked over, plans made, and not a few tried, to change 

 those conditions, and in some cases they succeed to quite an extent ; 

 but when the subject is too large, extends too far and one life is 

 not long enough to accomplish it, then men turn to each other and 

 unite their efforts with a single aim toward the accomplishment of 

 that much desired change for the better. 



Now the question that confronts us to-day is whether our Maine 

 apples shall be made to maintain and improve their reputation in the 

 foreign markets — and how it shall be done. In the first place let us 

 consider for a moment whether under existing circumstances this 

 condition is being accomplished. Within the last two or three years 

 it has been the custom for a few men known as shippers to buy up 

 or engage all the Maine apples they positively can early in the 

 season, so that in a short time after the crop is harvested, nearly all 

 of it passes out of the producer's hands and into the hands and 

 under the control of comparatively a few men, and each individual 

 fruit grower tries to sell his stock to the best present advantage to 

 himself, and for that reason it has become the rule to sell his No. 

 I's and 2's just as they come at the same price, (with the exception 

 of the culls) with the understanding that the buyer is to pack them, 

 and the universal testimony of the producer is that the packer takes 

 them very nearly to an apple, puts in apples that they should not 

 think of selling. In fact, I heard one packer say of another that 

 "he put in apples that he would be ashamed to offer to his cow." 

 The producer is pleased with the transaction, he sees a part of the 

 barrels marked with a pencil No. 1 B, for Baldwins, or No. 2 B, etc., 



