FRUITS 125 



As Professor S. T. Maynard in Suburban Life tells us, 

 "In a suburban garden of one of our Eastern cities are 

 seven Astrachan trees, about twenty years old, from which 

 have been sold in a single season over one hundred dollars' 

 worth of fruit. A friend near Boston put three thousand 

 barrels of picked Baldwins into cold storage. None of the 

 fancy apples sold for less than three dollars a barrel, and the 

 others netted more than two dollars. They were the prod- 

 uct of less than forty acres of trees which had been planted 

 about twenty-five years. Another fruit grower showed me 

 several returns of commission men of five, six, and even 

 seven dollars a barrel for fancy Baldwins. At such prices, 

 and under such conditions, there is a large profit in apple 

 growing." 



"The other side of the picture, however, is the more 

 common one. A friend sent fifty barrels of fancy Bald- 

 wins to a commission house, to be shipped to European 

 markets, the returns for which were just enough to pay for 

 the barrels. The majority of apples grown in the United 

 States are sold to buyers, one buyer in each section, for a 

 dollar to two dollars for No. 1 quality, and a dollar for No. 2. 

 With the cost of barrels at about forty cents, labor for pick- 

 ing, sorting, and packing, these prices leave little or nothing 

 for the use of the land, cost of fertilizers, spraying, thinning, 

 etc., all of which are necessary for growing fruit of the best 

 quality." 



Holmes further says, in substance, that we must make 

 the trees grow vigorously, whether upon poor or good soil. 

 Growth is the first requirement. To do this, we need a 

 strong, deep, moist soil, good grass land well under- 

 drained makes the best. If this is on an elevation with a 

 northern or western exposure, it will be better than a south- 



