PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 141 



The harvesting, grading, bleaching, and marketing are all simple, 

 requiring little skill. 



The average yield of a good soft-shell orchard in its prime, and under 

 favorable conditions, will exceed one ton per acre, and the average sell- 

 ing price will exceed $150 per ton. The net profits per acre will 

 exceed $100. 



The trees come into profitable bearing at eight years from the plant- 

 ing of the nuts, reach their prime at twelve years, begin to decline at 

 twenty years, and should be replaced by young trees at twenty-five 

 years. By planting two- or three-year-old nursery trees the orchard 

 €omes into profitable bearing in five or six years. 



The output of the present year will exceed 6,000 tons, the proceeds 

 of which will exceed $1,000,000. But these results will be greatly sur- 

 passed in the near future, when the orchards recently planted come 

 into their full fruitage. 



Future of the Industry. — Although the quantity produced is 

 rapidly increasing, there seems to be but little danger of over-produc- 

 tion, or that the profitableness of the industry, if wisely managed, will 

 seriously diminish for many years to come. As already shown, the 

 area of successful culture is comparatively limited. You can find a 

 hundred acres adapted to the orange, the lemon, the olive, the prune, 

 the apricot, or the raisin grape, where you can find one adapted to the 

 walnut; hence, the output must always remain comparatively limited. 



At the present time vast quantities of nuts — chiefly walnuts and 

 filberts — are imported from foreign countries to supply the American 

 markets. Only four years ago these foreign importations far exceeded 

 our entire product, and I presume they still do. This simply proves 

 that if the home market continues to show a preference for our product 

 in the future, as it has for the past few years, we are in no danger 

 whatever of over-production. 



Added to all this, the rapid increase of population in all the States 

 east of us, removes still farther into the future the possibility that the 

 supply will exceed the demand. And as long as the demand is greater 

 than the supply, there should be no diminution of the satisfactory 

 prices now prevailing. 



Need of Cooperation. — There is only one thing that threatens the 

 decadence of present prices, and that is the lack of cooperation on the 

 part of the growers. In this age of shrewd speculation and fierce com- 

 petition, whatever industry fails to resort to concentration of interest is 

 doomed. 



Under the high pressure of twentieth century methods and conditions, 

 everybody but the farmer has learned that competition is the death of 



