34 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 
large his sphere of work, and cultivate fruits for the 
various seasons of the year, thus giving employ- 
ment to a regular force of hands, who, on account 
of their proficiency, become indispensable on a fruit 
farm. Crops should be anticipated, and markets 
provided just as the manufacturer seeks and secures 
sale for his goods.” 
Is there over-production of frwit?—All these re- 
marks bring up the old question as to whether there 
is an over-production of fruit. The probability is 
that there is not an absolute over-production except 
in special years; that is, that there is not more 
fruit grown- than can be consumed in one way or 
another. It is very likely, however, that there is 
frequently a relative over-production,—that there 
is more fruit grown than can be consumed in the 
markets which are ordinarily at the disposal of 
the grower. The difficulty is probably rather more 
one of unequal or imperfect distribution than of 
absolute over-production of the commodity. The 
tendency of the time is to remedy this defect through 
more perfect means of dissemination, but it is too 
much to hope for a perfectly equal distribution of 
fruits, since the fruit areas are more or less limited 
in their geographical distribution, whilst the fruit 
consuming population is distributed far and wide. 
When there are heavy gluts in some markets and 
fruit does not pay for the freight, there are very 
often other places, a few hundred miles away, in 
which the commodity is searce. The recent intro- 
duction of special fruit and refrigerator cars has 
