No. 4.] FliUITS FOR LOCAL MARKETS. 65 



whether there were 10 or 1,000 on the tree, but it is not. 

 The quality ivS wonderfully changed by the amount of fruit 

 you allow the tree to bear, and the color is also affected by 

 it. So thinning the fruit not only increases the size, but the 

 beauty and the quality, and that is what your consuming 

 people ai'e going to pay for. It is the only way to get the 

 top dollar. It takes the first dollar to pay the rent of the 

 land, and the next two or three for the labor, and the next 

 dollar or two for the fertilizers, and another dollar or two 

 for the spraying, and something for the packages, and then 

 the harvesting and taking to the market ; and there isn't any- 

 thing for the grower until you get at the top, and all you get 

 on the top means business and profit, and for the women 

 Easter bonnets and all that sort of thing. I grow peaches 

 in Georgia on quite an extended scale, shipping to the dif- 

 ferent dealers. We will assume a price of $1.50 a crate. 

 Some dealers, rather than lose a trade, will drop the price to 

 $1.40. They say, "I was only 10 cents below the other fel- 

 low," but that 10 cents was all there was in it for me. The 

 difference didn't look big, but it would pay 13 per cent div- 

 idends on the capital stock of our company on that crop, and 

 that is a big dividend. So to the grower the last cent you 

 can put on the top of a basket of peaches or strawberries is 

 the funny business. It is that which spells profit to the fruit 

 grower. It is all the fun you are going to get out of it ; and 

 it can only be had by spraying and thinning and careful 

 handling and nice packing. Whatever fruit you put on the 

 market wants to be the same top and bottom and all the way 

 through all the time. Not that you are any more honest 

 than we are in Connecticut, but that it will develop and hold 

 trade and pay, — that is all. 



Plums : these incoming foreigners that want so much wine 

 making also are great lovers of plums. Up to the advent of 

 the Japanese plums twenty years ago there were scarcely any 

 plums used as a dessert fruit, and they were used for can- 

 ning and preserving but very little. But the advent of the 

 Japanese plums has brought the consuming public to eat- 

 ing plums very largely. The Japanese plums are extremely 

 short-lived but hardy trees, and, properly handled, they arc 



