24 



he gets a refund of his $15. at the end of the season. Isn't 

 this packing school something which we ought to take up, 

 whether we adopt the box or continue to pack our apples 

 in barrels? 



I should like to continue this discussion of general im- 

 pressions, because there are several other matters which in- 

 terested me greatly, but I have promised Brother Brown not 

 to speak over forty minutes, and I see he is already getting 

 nervous, so I am going to pass on to the second section ol" 

 my subject, viz.- A comparison of New England and the Pa- 

 eific Coast. 



Some two years ago. at the request of ]\Ir. J. Lewis Ells- 

 worth, Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture. I wrote 

 a bulletin which was called ''Western Methods in New Eng- 

 land Orchards," giving my notions as to the reasons for 

 western success in orcharding and as to the comparative ad- 

 vantages of the East and the West as apple growing sec- 

 tions. This, of course, was without any first-hand knowledge 

 as to the West. I was greatly interested, therefore, to 

 "check up," in this recent trip of mine, the impressions I 

 had previously received from reading and talking with oth- 

 ers, and from observation of the western fruit in our east- 

 ern markets. And it was a source of considerable satisfac- 

 tion to find that my long-range impressions were pretty gen- 

 erally sustained on closer examination. I want naw to re- 

 cord my notions on this point, both because many are still 

 looking to the West as the only (or at least the best) place 

 to grow apples, and because those of us who are taking up 

 the fruit business here in New England need every en- 

 couragement to keep us "strong in the faith." 



I believe then that the following is a fair, and I hope an 

 impartial, presentation of the case of the western apple sec- 

 tions. Their advantages as I see them are : 



(1) That they can and do, as I have said, produce 

 fruit of the very greatest beauty, more handsome than we 

 do in the East. I know some of you Avill want to object to 

 that, and I know that some of our finest fruit leaves little to 

 be desired from the standpoint of beauty, but I, for one, am 

 willing to admit that as a class western fruit is prettier to 

 look at than eastern. I certainly never saw anything quite 

 so handsome as some of the Baldwins, Rhode Island Green- 

 ings, Rome Beauties, etc., which I saw on exhibition at Van- 

 couver and Spokane. And since nice looks will always be 



