FOURTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 69 



Of course, each man must be his own juclj^^e as to the best 

 time and place to market his fruit. Some will find it to their 

 advantag^e to arrange to Imkl their fruit until winter, and 

 others, under dilYerent conditions, will make more by letting 

 it go when picked. If one has a good local market, and grows 

 good fruit, he should have no difficulty in selling for profit- 

 able prices during the winter, after the other kinds of fruit 

 are out of the way, but if he is to ship any distance, by rail, 

 I believe it better to let the fruit go when picked, either to the 

 local buver or to the commission house in the city. In ship- 

 ping by rail in winter the freight service is so uncertain unless 

 in carload lots, that it is too risky to ship on account of frost, 

 and the express charges are so high as to be prohibitory, and 

 there is the same danger of frost when shipped by express 

 that there is when shipped by freight, so that by shipping 

 when the apples are picked these risks are avoided, and the 

 money is in hand for immediate use. The shipping and sell- 

 ing of fruit in winter is a business by itself, and the ordinary 

 farmer will not be able to master it so as to successfully com- 

 pete with those who make it their business. 



There is one thought in this connection that has come to 

 me. I believe it is worth elaborating upon a little. My friend 

 from Virginia reminds me of it. In Western New York, 

 where they devote such large areas to the cultivation of 

 apples, and in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, apples are 

 produced in such a way that the buyers can go to those sec- 

 tions and buy all the apples they want in a week's time. The 

 people who make a business of buying and selling apples are 

 educated up to a standard, and the growers who deal with 

 them after a short time become thoroughly acquainted with 

 what the buyers want, and know how to pack to such a degree 

 of perfection that they can be trusted. I think that is usually 

 the case. Where the producer does the packing and ships 

 off to a distant market, without understanding fully the on- 

 ditions that exist in that market as to what is demanded in 

 the packing, the producer, of course, is apt to make a mistake. 

 \\ here the comUiission man or the i)uver does the itack'ing, 

 and the producer has nothing to do with it, then, of course, 

 it eliminates all of the danger which otherwise might exist 



