114 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



consider there is something else necessary, and that one great 

 trouble why we arc holding back is simply this, — the lack of 

 capital. A man in this vicinity who engages in fruit growing 

 starts out to do something. He is at once criticized and doubt- 

 ed and considered a sort of adventurer, and everybody has an 

 opinion, and it is almost always against his success. That is the 

 most serious handicap in this fruit industry. I can tell you 

 today that the fruit industry of this state is capable of being its 

 leading industry. In every section of the world, the finances 

 and the prosperity of that section must ultimately be gauged 

 by the prosperity of its agricultural interests. 



We will say that in a certain section each farm is producing 

 perhaps a carload of products to be shipped over the railroad. 

 Well, the result of that shipment is what the largest part of 

 this whole community has to do business on. The only way we 

 really get money is to produce something and send it off and get 

 some money back. Then that goes through your channels of 

 trade, and they all get a commission out of it. When ^ '•hat 

 shipment of products is cut off your trade is curtailed, arL,. peo- 

 ple cannot pay their bills, and half of the people do not really 

 understand what is the matter. 



You say to a man. "Why don't you put in more trees, and 

 cultivate them, and furnish fertilizer and grow this fruit?" 

 Well, the man does not always tell you just why he does not do 

 it, but if he has no capital it is a pretty hard proposition. If 

 he buys the land, or phosphate, and he has not the cash to pay 

 down, people are very much in doubt about that venture. And 

 the very doubt and the very attitude that is taken towards those 

 things are a serious matter. 



Just to illustrate that point: I started in the fruit business 

 sixteen years ago. To begin with, I was simply an apple buyer. 

 I looked over the situation as a man will when he has gone into 

 a business. Perhaps I looked at it more seriously after I got 

 into it than I did before. I could not see that apple buyers 

 ever got very rich, and I made up my mind that I didn't want 

 to tie myself entirely to the apple business as a buyer. I had 

 bought a great many apples around the country, and paid out a 

 lot of good money, and I made up my mind that the growing 

 industry was much better than the buying, so I bought a farm, 

 and if ever a man was worried about it, I can assure you I was. 



