REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON FRUITS. O 



fruits are rather slow of sale and that it would be an easy matter to 

 cause a glut, by a slight increase in quantity. Indeed, dealers will tell 

 you they have Pears kept back which they let go to waste rather than 

 overstock the market and reduce the price. The producer's price is low 

 enough, and yet he must keep his supply at a moderate limit, lest he 

 should cause a decline in prices. IsTow instead of this, the trv;th is that 

 we have not made any aj^proach to a test of the capacity of our market 

 for fruits. The price of most fruits to the consumer is altogether too 

 high to admit of their free use liy all classes. We have only to call to 

 mind a surplus crop of any fruit, the Peach of this season for example, 

 which compels a moderate retail price, to notice the vastly increased 

 demand which seems to absorb all that is received. It is then manifest 

 that the price governs the demand. Make the price reasonable and there 

 can scarcely be a danger of overstocking our markets with really good 

 fruit. But we have before said that the producer's price is low enough. 

 The difficult^' is with the retail price. For example the average price of 

 native Grapes to the producer was ^10 per hundred pounds in September 

 last. Day by day dealers were supplied at this rate, they not disguising 

 but rather advertising, with large placards in their windows, the same 

 fruit at twenty cents per pound. Thus they received, with scarcely any 

 shrinkage, and for the mere trouble of weighing, exactly as much as the 

 cultivator does for his months of toil. Could we sell Grapes by the 

 ton, §10 per hundred pounds would be regarded as a sufficiently reward- 

 ing price to the cultivator. And if, instead of the extortionate advance 

 of hundred per cent., they were retailed at a moderate profit, does any 

 one doubt that the quantity required for consumption would increase to 

 a point fully equal to our capacity to supply. It is the pernicious 

 influence of our Boston market, extending to all our adjoining large 

 towns, which checks enterprise and prevents a large expansion in fruit 

 culture. The Grape is instanced as possibly a strong case, and jet it 

 indicates the fact that a much larger commission is paid to produce 

 dealers in Boston than is the case in New York, Philadelphia and other 

 large cities. This fact operates in two ways. It makes the cost of 

 living in Boston comparatively high, and thus injures the interests of 

 the city. It also limits the demand and circumscribes the profits 

 of the producer, and thus discourages enterprise. Plainly we need more 

 open markets and more direct methods for the delivery of our fruits. 

 But our space is too limited for the discussion of this subject. In 

 noting the objects of interest on exhibition during the season we have 

 again to pass the fruits in course. 



Strawberries. — ■ Jenny Lind took the lead as the best early kind^ 

 seeming to be about a week earlier than Ilovey, or Triomphe. On this- 

 account it is valuable, and it is certainly deserving the attention of ama- 

 teurs. For Winter forcing Triomphe de Gaud has given the best resjjlts. 



