144 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1898. 



less one is willing to sell for a correspondingly low price. 

 Every barrel of inferior apples sold practically prevents the sale 

 of a barrel of choice fruit, and every barrel of apples sold that 

 is improperly handled or dishonestly sorted and packed causes 

 the purchaser to lose confidence, and he is unwilling to pay as 

 much as he would if he was sure every time of getting a barrel 

 of apples honestly packed. 



There is not too much good fruit sent to market, but too 

 much inferior fruit, for which some other use should be made. 

 It is not from those who take good care of their orchards that 

 the bulk of the improperly packed and inferior fruit comes, but 

 from the average farmer, who either does not know how or will 

 not take the trouble to care for his trees or handle the fruit as it 

 should be. 



The time has passed when apples can be grown and made to 

 pay under snch treatment, and the sooner the average farmer 

 goes out of the fruit business the better off will he be. 



These orchards have not paid in the past, and the chances 

 are that they will pay less in the future as competition increases 

 and the markets call for better fruit. 



The fruit business is following in the line of other industries, 

 and is becoming a business of itself. More are making fruit 

 growing a specialty than in the past. More orchards containing 

 thousands and tens of thousands of trees have been planted by 

 single individuals or stock companies during the past fifteen 

 years than ever before, and this extensive planting it still going 

 on. It is only about ten or twelve years since California first 

 began to ship fruit to our markets to any considerable extent, 

 and but about fifteen years since the exporting of apples to 

 Europe began to be an important factor in the handling of the 

 apple crop. 



How important a bearing the exporting of apples has upon 

 the home markets can be known when we realize that during the 

 season of 1896 and '97 nearly 3,000,000 barrels of apples were 

 shipped to Europe. If we should look through our list of fruits 

 we shall find that commercial fruitgrowing has nearly all sprung 



