NINTH ANNUAL MEETING. loi 



cars were on a vside track being loaded at that price. Our 

 train stopped to take on two cars, going to New York by 

 express. A gentleman got off the train and bought three 

 ten-pound baskets for twenty-five cents, of a grower. I 

 wondered then how these growers, after paying for 

 baskets or crates and picking and packing, were ever able 

 to buy any seal-skin sacks for their wives, or send them to 

 Europe for a pleasure trip from the profits — unless as the 

 man who sold shot by the pint for a pound. 



There is a growing demand for Gooseberries, and they 

 have been sold at a little better prices than currants for 

 past three years, but four or five acres would probably 

 supply a prett}' large city or two now. The Red Jacket, I 

 have found best of the newer varieties. Large, showy 

 fruit and bears well here. 



Make fruit to which your soil is best adapted a specialty 

 until you have learned how to bring it to perfection. But 

 do not put "all your eggs in one basket" ; have something 

 else to fall back on. The crop that paid me best last sea- 

 son, labor and expense considered, was potatoes. Some 

 seasons strawberries pay best; another it may be raspber- 

 ries, and one year it was blackberries. We may be sure of 

 this — whatever we get out of Mother Earth we will earn 

 every dollar by mental or physical labor, or both. 



Marketing. — Mr. Blodget has given you excellent 

 points in this line, as he sees them from his experience in 

 handling in large quantities. We must use convenient, 

 neat and attractive packages and, all things being equal, 

 the nearer we can get to the consumer that requires our 

 quality of goods, the better, as the less distance the fruit is 

 shipped, the fewer times it is handled, the better it will 

 appear. But often, or generally, the grower has little or 

 no acquaintance with the best trade, and cannot sell direct 

 to consumer. I have had very little experience with com- 

 mission dealers, but so far as my experience goes I had 

 rather trust them than the average farmer, and because of 

 their large acquaintance, and being on the ground, or in 

 the market, they can often pay the grower a higher net 

 price for his fruit than he dare ask for it of his regular 

 customers or consumers, provided it is received in fine con- 



