328 BOARD OF AGRICULTUKE. [Pub. Doc. 



Report of the Meetings of the Massachu- 

 sett;s Fruit Growters' Association. 



BY PROF. S. T. MAYNARD, SECRETARY. 



For a great many years the amount of fruit consumed by 

 the people of this State has been steadily increasing, but 

 this increase has come not from our own growers but larg-elv 

 from other States and countries. Of the amount of fruit 

 imported into Massachusetts from other States or countries 

 we have no accurate statistics available at this time, but we 

 learn that the city of Boston alone consumed in a single 

 season nearly 2,000,000 cans of apple, and in the city of 

 Worcester a single dealer handled two carloads of the same 

 product ; and almost every town or city in the State con- 

 sumes more or less of apples in this convenient form, none 

 of which are produced by our own fruit growers. 



In every city, town or village, evaporated apples, dried 

 plums, peaches and berries are consumed in more or less 

 large quantities ; and canned peaches, cherries, raspberries 

 and strawberries are found on the shelves of almost every 

 grocer and provision dealer in the State. During the 

 summer and foil our markets are flooded with fresh fruits 

 from other States : strawberries from Florida, Georgia, Vir- 

 ginia and New Jersey ; peaches from most of the southern 

 States ; grapes from the south and west and almost every 

 kind of fruit from the Pacific coast. 



No State in the Union, probably, consumes so much fruit 

 per capita as our own ; and our fruit growers should make a 

 great eff()rt to secure at least a reasonable share of this 

 immense traflic, and supply more fully than is now done 

 our local markets. In many cases the competition will be 

 between our native and the more tropical fruits and we can- 

 not expect to supply our markets out of the local fruiting 



