48 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The secret is, always grow a good article and you will 

 find enough people ready to buy it. My raethod is to have 

 the apples picked and handled carefully. I have said to the 

 hired man, "Handle them just as carefully as you would 

 eggs ; don't dump them as you would stones." I have for 

 three years kept Greening apples into May. I think that 

 one of the most important things is to be honest. When a 

 buyer sees that you put all your best apples near the head of 

 the barrel, perhaps two or three rows deep, he will be suspi- 

 cious of you. I have been taught by my Shaker religion to 

 be about as good one day in the week as another — [ap- 

 plause] ; — but a good many people want to put their best 

 garments on the outside. When a woman goes to catch you 

 she puts on her finest dress and finest bonnet. [Laughter.] 

 But I sa}^ when the buyer finds your apples just the same 

 throughout the whole barrel he believes in you and in your 

 apples, too. A man in Hartford the past year, my friend 

 Hale, put an advertisement in the paper saying, " Any 

 basket of peaches that I offer for sale, if it is not just as 

 good all through as it is on top, I will take them back and 

 refund the money." I went into his shop and said, "You 

 have made a great assertion, with as many thousand baskets 

 as you have got." Said he, " Richard, I hold to it to-day." 

 If he did that he has done something for which he is entitled 

 to the gratitude of the community and set an example which 

 every one should follow. If you sell a man second quality 

 fruit he is never satisfied afterwards, he is always complain- 

 ing ; but if you sell him a good article, one that is just what 

 you recommend it to be, he always comes back to you again. 

 And so it is with all the products of the farm. A man who 

 never expects to sell but one barrel of apples or one crop 

 to the same man will not care so much about his reputation ; 

 but when a man cares about his reputation, and is careful to 

 see that his products are what they should be, his customers 

 will come to him a second time. 



Mr. . Mr. Van Deusen has told us how to dispose 



of our apples after we have got them, but he has not told 

 us the secret of how to get them. He seemed to avoid the 

 point that he was called upon to answer. He has ap- 



