1891.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 113 



cents a pound. There was another lot came in on the same 

 boat, in white, clean boxes, made of very thin wood, 

 cheaper boxes than the others, and the asparagus was of the 

 same quality, to all appearance ; but it was tied up with 

 nice pink tape, which does not cost five cents a mile. It was 

 nicely tied up, it looked very attractive, and it sold for ten 

 cents a pound, — almost 70 per cent more than the other 

 asparagus sold for. I thought I would like to go up and see 

 the man who produced that asparagus, and I went to his 

 farm. He told me that he had made it a practice for years 

 of taking one day every two weeks, going to Chicago and 

 spending the day not in looking around the streets, going 

 to the theatre and having a good time generally, but in the 



O O O *. ' 



Chicago market. He got up about twelve- o'clock in the 

 morning and went down to the market, to see what he could 

 learn about the shipment of all kinds of produce. He told 

 me that some of his neighbors said he was going to Chicago 



O COO 



pretty often and having a good time, but he was really work- 

 ing as hard as when he was in the field. I have seen Kalama- 

 zoo celery sold in the Western markets (and they grow very 

 nice celery out there), tied up with blue tape a third of an 

 inch wide, tied at the bottom and also about half-way up to 

 the top. This blue tape on the white celery made the 

 bunches look very attractive, and everybody wanted it. It 

 sold for a good deal less money than my friend Rawson gets 

 for his celery ; but, when Kalamazoo celery was selling for 

 eighteen, twenty, and twenty-five cents per dozen, done up 

 in the ordinary style, this gentleman's celery, tied with blue 

 tape, was bringing thirty-five cents a dozen, — an increase 

 of forty per cent. 



So I might go on with illustration after illustration of the 



O C 



fact that the farmers who are studying the best methods of 

 handling their produce are the most successful farmers ; and, 

 if you follow them to their homes, you will find that they are 

 not talking about New England farming as " played out," 

 they are perfectly satisfied. I have recently been in the 

 West, the southwest and on the Pacific coast, and I found 

 that almost any one of the farmers there was willing to sell 

 out — for a consideration, of course — and come to Massachu- 

 setts, to Connecticut or to Maine. There are thousand) 



