io6 state; pomological socikty. 



$150 on one carload of apples. In a little while the mail may 

 show them, one single mail, a loss of $500. It is gambling, and 

 it is quite interesting, and exciting and depressing both at times, 

 and if I had never gone into it, I shouldn't, knowing what I do 

 about it, — but a fellow gets to gambling and can't leave off. But 

 the buyer doesn't get more than his share, the middlemen we 

 hear so much about don't get more than their share. For 

 instance, you raise a barrel of apples and pick it and get it into 

 your cellar, and they do the rest except drawing them to the sta- 

 tion. But they put more money into the apples than you do. 

 We who grow apples should not think that we ought to receive 

 all that they get at the other end of the route, when they have 

 taken the apples, transported them on cars and boats, kept them 

 in warehouses, keeping an extensive staff of clerks, and all those 

 things. They do more to the apple after they. take hold of it — 

 that is, put more expense into it, perhaps two or three times 

 according to where the market is, than the man who raises it. 

 Mr. Smiley was asked how much his apple crop cost him last 

 year for which he received $450 on the trees. "Well, it cost me 

 63 cents, the whole crop. I hired Preston Lancaster," he said, 

 "a half a day to help me prop the apple trees, and that is all they 

 cost me." Of course he didn't reckon the interest on $15 an 

 acre land that the trees stood on, but it would not have been very 

 great. He hasn't fertilized his orchard, other than to allow his 

 sheep to run there and shut them in there nights, for a genera- 

 tion, and he has gotten good crops right along. It doesn't cost 

 much to raise a barrel of apples. You can raise a barrel of 

 apples for ten cents on the trees before your touch them, so when 

 you sell them for fifty cents — whether you raise them for ten 

 cents or not, I am very sure that selling them for fifty cents on 

 the trees is good business. It will yield you $50 a year per acre, 

 and what other crop will yield that ? 



Now one thing more about the marketing, the subject that was 

 given me. I will tell you what I do. I was going to say if I 

 were you I would do so and so, but I do this way. Any ordinary 

 year, in the fall, gathering time, I get all the force I can to help 

 me that I can handle, and board or hire boarded in that vicinity, 

 all that I can work to advantage, to go with me into that orchard, 

 and I first gather up all my odd kinds such as Bellflowers and 



