EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 165 



or sorting table, 8 feet long, 5 feet wide at the back. It runs 

 to a point, like the bow of a boat, is 8 inches deep, with a 

 bottom made of 1^ inch slats, half inch apart, and is built on 

 an axle and pair of wheels, so that it pitches toward the small 

 end, or outlet, which will stand about 8 inches above an apple 

 barrel. Burlap is fastened to the small end and is let down 

 into the barrel to prevent bruising the fruit. From this 

 arrangement the apples are sorted, immediately packed and 

 headed, and are carted to cold storage as fast as picked. By 

 the above methods I am enabled to keep my apples until the 

 following spring and summer, and to have apples to sell, 

 when my friends have none and I am able to supply a high 

 quality apple to the fancy trade. 



No doubt you will notice that I have not mentioned set- 

 ting, pruning, mixing and applying the spraying materials 

 and fertilizers and tillage, although each of these operations 

 are of vital importance, and are worthy of special consider- 

 ation, yet I cannot dwell upon them, for I have to be brief. 



Occasionally I receive circulars from Washington and 

 Oregon, advertising their ideal apple lands, at fabulous 

 prices, and soliciting capital from the east, to develop the 

 apple industry of the Northwest. There is no need of this. 

 There is no section of the Western States so densely popu- 

 lated as Southern New England. And the wages per capita 

 received exceeds those paid in any part of our country. We 

 can stay right here and grow fancy apples, right in the midst 

 of this fancy market, and keep in touch with our customers, 

 thus avoiding heavy freight charges and deceptive commis- 

 sions, and dishonesty at long range ; by so doing we shall 

 keep thousands of dollars here in New England which are 

 now going West. 



Although it is a pleasure for me to read this paper to 

 you, I would that this hall were filled with boys and girls 

 from our New England farms. I would like to tell them 

 the folly of going to the cities to enter the shops and count- 

 ing-room, when there are fortunes in our New England hills 

 awaiting the youth, for its development. While at work we 



