TWENTIETH ANNUAL MEETING. 165 



certain special occasions it may be coincident. l)nt with J. H. 

 Hale it is a habit. (Laughter and applause.) With him it is 

 what the moving picture people call a continuous perform- 

 ance, (laughter) so I don't believe that I told you that. 



\\& have great times down in Virginia sometimes with 

 our farmers' institutes. ^^ e have big farmers' institutes that 

 run three or four days, we get sometimes l.SOO people in the 

 opera house, and whenever things get a little dull, somebod)' 

 gets up on the platform and makes a crack at an old Dutch- 

 man by the name of Solenberg, and he always comes back and 

 starts things going and livens up the meeting. Now I miss 

 my guess if Hale isn't your Solenberg. (Loud laughter.) 



However, I think I told you six years ago that we would 

 raise a million barrels of apples in the valley of Virginia in 

 ten years. This year, with four years to spare, the railroads 

 report to us that they moved 780,000 barrels of apples from 

 the valley this year. I think that probably I will reach the 

 limit before the ten years are up. 



The prices that we secure for our fruit are varied, as it 

 should be, because it is varied in quality. The best growers 

 last year received three dollars a barrel for red fruit, which 

 with us means everything except the Albemarle Pippin, and 

 four dollars a barrel for the Albemarle Pippin. 



Now one of the surprising things to me is that in looking 

 over your list of varieties for which you offer premiums, there 

 is not a single apple on that list that we grow, except Ben 

 Davis. I have often wondered what the Ben Davis was good 

 for, and now I believe it was made to be the connecting link 

 between the North and the South. 



When we think of the tremendous number of varieties 

 that are successful under varied conditions of soil and climate, 

 it only gives me an idea of what our country is capable of if 

 properly developed. 



Now just a word about our varieties. The York Imper- 

 ial, which you don't grow here at all. is our great money 

 maker. The yield of fruit it carries is tremendous, the tree 

 is a good grower and grows very rapidly, and altogether, it is 



