50 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



plain of this picking up of the little roads and consolidating 

 them into one big one, but that has had much to do with our 

 increased fruit supply. The consolidation of these roads, so 

 there is one large system reaching to the far west and to the 

 far south, has done away with the local fruit season, so there 

 is no longer scarcely any fruit season at all. The strawberry, 

 which in the immediate location where it is grown covers a 

 period of ripening at the most only twenty to thirty days, 

 now is on the market nine months of the year, — from De- 

 cember until August. And peaches, which a few years ago 

 in the eastern part of the country had a season of tliree 

 weeks, are now obtainable for seven months. The canta- 

 loupe, once with us but three weeks, is now on the market 

 five months. There are no more short and sweet seasons. 

 The gTapes are with us five months, and the good old apple 

 all the year round. So the ' ' season " business has been done 

 away with by the long-distance railroads, refrigerator cars 

 and cold storage. 



And people have got into the habit of fruit eating. Habits, 

 whether good or bad, are great controllers of the human race. 

 You get into any habit, whether good or bad, and it is 

 pretty hard to get out of it ; and I am glad to see the 

 people of America have got into the good habit of eating 

 fruit, doing away with the bad habit of some of the coarser 

 food products. 



Take an instance of the cantaloupe. A dozen years ago 

 the cantaloupe or muskmelon, though grown in all sections 

 of the country where it might be successfully grown in family 

 gardens and for local markets, was not raised for extensive 

 shipping. Of course for twenty or twenty-five years they 

 have been shipping small quantities from Maryland, Delaware 

 and New Jersey to New York and Philadelphia, and from 

 Michigan to Chicago, but there was not a single carload of 

 cantaloupes loaded in one station in any one day in any part 

 of the United States ten or twelve years ago ; but the de- 

 velopment of a choice variety, and putting it in a good 

 shipping package that would carry it a long distance, which 

 started about eleven or twelve years ago in refrigerator cars, 

 got the people to eating cantaloupes out of season ; and last 



