SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 109. 



Is it encouraging for the fruit growers? Many of you 

 are willing to pay an advance price for various food products 

 on the market and pay for quality, but when it comes to fruit, 

 that is a different thing. If it looks right on the outside some- 

 times when you open your package you find that quality 

 does not continue throughout the package. We may offer 

 perfectly sound, ripe peaches that are delicious, absolute per- 

 fection for consumption to-day, and yet we can sell them for 

 only about one-quarter price. People had rather buy some- 

 thing that is hard and tough, not fully developed. They think 

 they can keep it a little longer. Fruit of the high quality 

 don't sell for what it is worth. Ninety-five per cent, of all 

 the- consumers purchase fruit judging with their eyes rather 

 than their mouth. There are about five per cent, of the people 

 who know a good thing and appreciate it and are willing to' 

 pay for quality, for first quality. We can hardly afford to- 

 carry on our horticultural operations for the benefit of that five 

 per cent. All of us fruit growers grow the choicest fruit 

 for ourselves and for our friends and neighbors, and I think 

 we have surplus to take care of that five per cent, who are- 

 willing to pay for the fine fruit, and if they are willing to pay 

 for it they are worthy our greatest consideration. Even that 

 five per cent, of the consumers want a certain article, and; 

 they go from store to store until they find the article and the 

 quality they want, but when they find it they are not willing- 

 to pay for it. Not over ten per cent, of that five per cent, are 

 willing to pay the price for that high quality. As a busines. 

 proposition, we, as dealers, are up against it. It is the same 

 idea with the newspapers and magazines. A large percentage 

 of the people want the miserable sheets that are circulated in 

 our country. If they didn't demand the publication of such- 

 matter, it would not be printed. 



The majority of all the fruits we produce in our Connec- 

 ticut orchards and fields, and, in fact, the country over, is large 

 in size. Now, if we can couple the quaHty and quantity, other 

 things being equal, everything will go well. We are growing 

 a little bit more of the high quality fruit. We are studying 

 the quality and planning for it. I think it is the duty of this 



