xii BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



can be secured for home-grown fruit. This is all wrong. 

 With the market at our doors, it is the fault of the producer 

 that our native fruit does not command the highest price of 

 any fruit put upon the market. More care should be given 

 to the production of the apple crop, cultivation of orchards 

 should be the rule rather than the exception, and better 

 methods of grading and packing should be adopted. Thus 

 and only thus can New England fruit take the position that 

 it should occupy, — at the head instead of the foot of the 

 market. Our farmers have a gold mine at their hands, if 

 they will but develop it. A ten-acre orchard on any New 

 England farm, intelligently and carefully cultivated and 

 cared for for ten years, with the fruit handled according 

 to the most advanced methods, will prove the most profitable 

 branch of farming. 



Milk Legislatioist. 

 There were many bills looking to the betterment of the 

 milk producer introduced at the last session of the Legisla- 

 ture. Most of these bills were aimed at the milk standard, 

 and sought to do away with it, or correct its inequalities; 

 but there were others which sought to regulate the conditions 

 of transportation and production. Of all these bills, those 

 which sought to do away with the milk standard altogether 

 were urged with the greatest earnestness and had the widest 

 support from the milk producers. There was never a chance 

 that such legislation would be enacted, nor, in my judgment, 

 is it likely that there will be a chance of its success in the 

 near future. Whatever may be the merits of the contention, 

 we must remember that the Legislature as a whole represents 

 the consuming elements of the public; and the consumers 

 have not been brought to believe that some standard is not 

 necessary for their protection, nor are they likely to reach 

 that point for some time to come. As, if the consumer will 

 not consume there is no use for the producer to produce, we 

 must regard the ideas and prejudices of the consumers to a 

 certain extent; and, while we can always try to show that 

 they are unfounded, and so lead them to modify or give them 

 up, we cannot, as good business men, say that we will not 



