70 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



right time. They cannot afford to put in an irrigating phint, 

 costing $3,000, $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000, for two or 

 three or five acres of small fruits ; but they could have a 

 co-operative field of fifty acres, which would well repay an 

 expenditure of $20,000 for an irrigating plant. So also in 

 regard to spraying orchards. Many of you who have a few 

 trees do not spray them because it takes too much time, and 

 you do not want the bother and fuss of mixing a lot of 

 arsenical poison and applying it at the right time. It is a 

 somewhat expensive job if you have only a few trees, for it 

 will cost ten or fifteen cents a tree ; but with a large orchard 

 it costs but very little, — not more than two cents a tree. 

 So in the matter of cold storage. A small farmer does not 

 have it because his business is carried on upon too small a 

 scale, and when his fruit is gathered he must get rid of it at 

 once, because he is not prepared to handle it in a way to 

 secure the best prices. He must take it to the nearest 

 market and sell it for what he can get, because no one comes 

 after it. No dealer came all the way from St. Louis or 

 Denver this fall to see the farmer who had ten or twenty 

 barrels of apples in his cellar. A co-operative farm associa- 

 tion that had one, two, three or ten thousand barrels of the 

 standard varieties of apples would have buyers every day in 

 the week. They come for them where they are concen- 

 trated. Instead of allowing $2.00 or $2.50 a barrel for one 

 lot of apples and for another lot of ' ' fiirmers' packings " 50 

 cents less, they would meet you at the higher price and 

 would be glad to do so. 



So in regard to [)ackages. Undoubtedly much of that 

 work could be done in the Avinter. A good many farmers 

 do not have enough to do in the winter, some have too much ; 

 but where there w^as a co-operative association of tiiat kind 

 the work of barrel or box making coidd be done at that 

 time. Then there would be an o[)portunity to get the man- 

 aofement and control of the markets, and the farmers would 

 get the profits without the intervention of the middhuncn. 

 There is a wonderful opportunity, it seems to me, for co- 

 operative work in that line. I believe it will come to the 

 farmers of New England just as it had to come to other 

 business, and with a wonderful saving. 



