PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS 

 Pres. Fred C. Sears, Amherst, Mass. 



I presume that most of our fruit growers will think of 

 the year 1914 as anything but a prosperous and successful 

 one. And there certainly are a good many rather discour- 

 aging features of the record. To begin with, we lost our 

 peach crop, which seriously crippled many growers. Then 

 we had a very large crop of apples, which naturally de- 

 pressed the price on this fruit. When to this natural reduc- 

 tion in price was added the unnatural reduction caused by 

 the European war and the general financial depression, it 

 brought the price of anything but the very best apples ex- 

 tremely low. In addition to this we have of course, shared 

 in the general "hard times" which have affected all classes 

 of society. So that most of us are willing that 1914 should 

 "pass into history" and give us a new chance with 1915! 



But it seems to me that there are other phases of the 

 question which ought not to be lost sight of. We have cer- 

 tainly reaped some very distinct advantages from the very 

 conditions about which we complain'. Three of these bene- 

 fits in particular in my opinion deserve to be emphasized. 



In the first place the low price of apples, and the fear of 

 still lower prices, aroused so much interest and apprehension 

 among our growers and others interested, that more work 

 was done than ever before in attempting to push the sale of 

 apples. The "buy-a-barrel-of-apples" campaign and other 

 similar work by single growers and all sorts of organizations 

 has undoubtedly brought the apple to the attention of thou- 

 sands who would never have known anything about such a 

 fruit under ordinary conditions ! Or who, if they did know 

 of it, used very few apples. Moreover the very cheapness of 

 the fruit will cause many others to use them this year who 



