74 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GEOWERS' CONVENTION. 



there without being wasted. The Buffalo Exposition was a rare oppor- 

 tunity; we put the matter in the best hands, and none of it was wasted. 

 Last summer we distributed in pamphlets about two carloads of litera- 

 ture, and could have distributed four carloads if we had that much. 

 When we add to that literature the cooperation of a fine exhibit, and 

 the constant talking of those in attendance, and detailed explanations 

 among the visitors of matters relating to this State, and the information 

 given by word of mouth and the impression given by our exhibit, I 

 believe that more results than we now anticipate will come to us. 



By the support of the California Cured Fruit Association we kept up 

 a prune-cooking booth, in which we demonstrated the cooking of the 

 California prunes, and I was fortunate in getting a woman who could 

 not only stew prunes to perfection, but who made a very tasty prune 

 cake, so that the prunes would show artistically through the cake when 

 it was cut. She made prune pie and prune marmalade, and cooked the 

 fruit in many other ways. They were shown to the people around that 

 stand and given away there. We distributed 2,500 different recipes 

 for the cooking of our fruit. I requested one boy to stand there and 

 ask the people who tasted our fruit where they were from, and in one 

 day there were thirty- eight and the next day twenty-seven different 

 States, and the next day twenty-three or more. The grocerymen were 

 delighted with that prune exhibit, and stated that their sales of prunes 

 increased daily while we were there. Their sales increased from 20 to 

 150 per cent in the fresh fruit season with our little demonstrating 

 stand there at Bufifalo, so you can imagine what could be done by a 

 little systematic work of this kind throughout the country. 



As a result of the Atlanta Exposition, a man there had a store and 

 he got his wdfe to try and cook fruit after the fashion stated in one of 

 our little books, and it was such a success that he is now buying Cali- 

 fornia fruit by the carload. We had similar demonstrations in Germany 

 and in Paris, but were handicapped there because that year Europe had 

 one of the biggest crops of fruit ever known in its history. Everywhere 

 we went there was report of the big fruit crop, and wine was so plentiful 

 that they couldn't find cooperage for it. 



You gentlemen meet here and discuss fruit-growing in its various 

 phases, but I say with earnestness that one of the great works of your body 

 is the w^ork of pushing the demand for your product. Your fruits have 

 passed the mark of being a luxury; dried fruits are now strictly com- 

 modities; when we were little boys they were, luxuries. The successful 

 producers of fruit in this country and many others are pushing their 

 product to the people. Here is California with a fruit product that 

 runs into many millions of dollars, and yet no concerted effort of any 

 great importance is manifested for pushing it to the attention of the 

 world; but you can turn around and see the private enterprise of a 



