STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 49 



adapt to all conditions in country life, where there are so many 

 men engaged in so many different operations. For instance, in 

 this state there are 60,000 farms, and you can well see the diffi- 

 culty in bringing about cooperation between all these people. 

 Yet in different neighborhoods, where it could be compact in its 

 operation, there is every reason why we should cooperate. As I 

 think of the fruit business, I have come to believe that coopera- 

 tion could be applied to that business very readily and profit- 

 ably. 



We are applying it in our dairy business, through organized 

 effort in cow testing work and in the Cooperative Breeders' 

 Association work. We have five of each of those kinds of 

 association in this state at the present time. 



Another work which to my mind is more important and far 

 reaching, so far as its financial interests are concerned, we are 

 about to take up, and that is the work of seed improvement 

 through organized effort. The legislature at its recent session 

 passed an act directing the commissioner of agriculture to un- 

 dertake this work, and made an appropriation to carry it on. I 

 am quite safe in saying that all the agricultural interests of the 

 state will cooperate in the work. I have been assured of the 

 assistance of the experiment station, and of the bureau of farm 

 management at Washington, and I am equally positive that the 

 agricultural college will do anything in their power to aid in 

 this work. 



I have been over the work that has been done by the different 

 states, and to my mind that work which most closely unites the 

 experimental and the practical business world of cooperative 

 effort is the one most likely to succeed. I think all experi- 

 mental work that is done by farmers, and I am not sure but 

 I might equally say by the experiment station, so far as its 

 immediate benefit to the great mass of agricultural people is 

 concerned, should always be done with the commercial end of 

 the proposition as a basis. Sometimes I feel we disregard this. 



But let us come down to the possibilities of fruit growing for 

 a moment. I am not a fruit grower, but there is something 

 besides the dollars and cents to this question. There is a mat- 

 ter of education that comes into all associated work. And 

 wherever you find associated work, there you find increased 

 interest, better conditions and a better understanding of the 

 business. To my mind one of the greatest advantages coming 



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