36 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



ganization of our industry, — an organization that is neces- 

 sary, if Xew England agriculture is to be what it ought to 

 be and what it may be. 



Mr. WiLFKED WiiFJELEE. I would like to ask how the asso- 

 ciations of the west were started, — whether they were 

 started by an individual, or by a community ? 



Dean Davenport. A connnunity entirely. That leads to 

 another proposition, — that organization works best where 

 the whole community is interested in one thing. Such a com- 

 mon interest is desirable, from its own standpoint. We have 

 pushed individualism so far in this country that each farmer 

 does the things he desires to do, without regard to what his 

 neighbors are doing. A saddle horse is worth more money 

 if bred in a region where other saddle horses are bred, than 

 another horsQ raised in a different locality ; for when a region 

 gets a reputation, it is all the better for the individual pro- 

 ducer. If this region is raising apples, you have fifty or 

 a hundred men all interested in having this crop sold to 

 the best advantage ; therefore, they meet and organize. Two 

 things must then be provided ; a man who can sell fruit, sell 

 fruit to a graven image, make him think he must have it ; 

 and a man to standardize that fruit, and assort it so care- 

 fully that no man can tell what orchard it comes from. Put 

 120 apples into a box, and maybe they all came from one 

 farm, and maybe they didn't. And the men who sort them 

 don't know where they came from, and don't care. I used 

 the apple as an illustration, because it is convenient, and I 

 thought it was one of the coming things in ISTew England, 

 The Hood River apple is said to be the only apple sold in 

 the London market without opening the box. If you get that 

 reputation, you can make any demand. It is only occa- 

 sionally that a man can make his own name known by mere 

 strength ; it must be by organized effort. When they get 

 a barrel of Illinois apples in the market, they knock in the 

 head with a hatchet to see what they look like, and they find 

 they are not the same in the middle as at the to]) and bottom, 

 and that reduces the value. 



The community is the first thing, and when the label goes 

 on, it has back of it the guarantee of the association of that 



