102 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



( )thers were tempted to go to Delaware, selling out land 

 at $20 an acre, and going down there and paying $50 an acre 

 in that wonderful peach country, and they went there. 



Others were tempted to go to Florida and buy a section 

 of the pine barrens and hammock lands at $150 and $200 an 

 acre, ten acres was to be enough to suppr.rt them in luxurious 

 idleness in the winter. Nothing was said about the hot sum- 

 mer and the sandfleas.'or of the high rent, but the wonderful 

 prices that were realized there. And then a little later, the 

 railway agents blazoned this country with the wonderful prices 

 and opportunities of the land in the Ozarks, and fruit land 

 was bought at $15. $20. and sometimes as high as $50 an acre, 

 because it was the land of the big red apple. 



Still others were tempted to go over into California, and 

 there buy raw land at $100, $200 and sometimes $300 an acre, 

 and improved land with water rights at $500. $800 and some- 

 times $1,000 an acre, that a few acres were going to support 

 with the wonderful orange of that remarkable country, and the 

 wonderful markets of the world at the very highest prices. 



Then in recent years we have heard a great deal of the 

 I'acitic Northwest, where the apple lands that would produce 

 such wonderful crops in a few years, were selling at such 

 enormous prices. They bought barren lands, selling out the 

 good land of the East and going there and buying barren land 

 at practically $100 or $200 an acre, and in recent years paying 

 for them partly improved $300, $500, $800 and some of them 

 at $1,000 an acre, to grow apples to ship East and get the 

 money. 



What about the stav-at-homes ? What about the 17 mem- 

 bers who organized this Pomological Society 20 years ago. and 

 vou that have joined with them since? ' What has happened? 

 The men who left this Connecticut farmland and went to 

 Vineland. we will say, selling out to one of the neighbors or 

 to some incoming foreigner, while the Vineland country has 

 produced 1.000 or 1,500 quarts of strawberries which sold for 

 6 cents or 7 cents a quart, making $60 or $70 an acre, while 

 some abandoned acre at home has produced 3,000 or 4,000 



