March, 1917 
WISCONSIN HORTICULTURE 
109 
time there to put it in operation, 
that is, to work it out to its fullest 
efficiency and then too, we must 
consider that this law in New York 
is helping to educate the man who 
does not want to be educated along 
this line. 
The second type of legislation 
which I have in mind is to compel 
delinquents to use proper methods 
in producing their commodities or 
else get out of the business. Now, 
I know that it will be immediately 
said, “Why, that is radical. To 
I think that we should say to a 
: farmer, ‘You will either have to 
take care of this orchard, or you 
will have to get rid of it.’ That is 
i radical.” It is not radical at all. 
We think that it is radical because 
we have set a different standard 
for fruit growing than for other 
farming. We, the fruit growers, 
have allowed the people to set a 
different standard as regards our 
i business than as regards other 
business. You all know that we 
have a law that says to a man in a 
i community, “You shall not keep a 
i sheep dog on your farm to destroy 
the sheep of your neighbors.” We 
have a law more or less effective, 
i on our statute books that says to 
a man, “You shall not, on your 
farm, allow noxious weeds to de- 
I velop and infest the community.” 
But you say to the farm orchard - 
I ist, “You go on, you can grow just 
i as many apple scab spores and 
just as many codling moth and 
II just as many curculio to curse 
j your neighbour as you want to and 
we will not say a word about it.” 
I do not know, in fact I doubt 
' if we are at the present time in a 
place where it would be wise to 
|i enact such legislation in Wiscon- 
1 sin, although they have it in some 
| states. I want to bring this fact 
to your attention, however, that 
1 even in fruit growing in Wiscon- 
sin we arc saying that very thing, 
only in a very restricted way. 
We have on the statute books of 
Wisconsin today a law, and it is in 
effect in all the states which 
grow fruit, which gives the state 
authorities the right to go to a 
man who has his trees infested 
with a certain insect pest, the San 
Jose scale, and say to him, “You 
take care of that tree or we will 
take care of it for you.” You see 
it is not so big an innovation as 
you thought. Codling moth in its 
relation to fruit growing is not so 
very different from San Jose scale. 
We are coming to the point where 
in self defense we are looking at 
it in that light. They have come 
to it in certain western states. 
The state of Montana has come to 
it as regards the fire blight situa- 
tion and they are saying that 
crehardists cannot maintain a 
popular nuisance as regards the 
fruit industry bv maintaining 
trees which are badly infested with 
fire blight. We of Wisconsin, as 
our fruit industry develops, if it 
is to develop, will come sooner or 
later to that same basis of opera- 
tion, or else it will be a sorry day 
for the man who attempts to pro- 
duce fruit commercially in this 
state. 
I had an ex-student come into 
my office the other day to talk 
about the advisability of planting 
an orchard in a certain section in 
the state. He presented this situ- 
tion : — “Here is my proposition. 
Is it worth while for me to plant 
an orchard and compete with the 
kind of stuff that is put upon my 
market when the buyer does not 
seem to discriminate between poor 
and good fruit?” What is the 
use of better fruit if we do not 
have a better market? What shall 
we do about marketing? It is 
evident that one of the needs of 
Wisconsin fruit growing is better 
marketing methods. The day of 
individual marketing is largely 
past, except where a man is a very 
large grower, or where he is mar- 
keting locally. In order to obviate 
that difficulty in certain sections, 
we have co-operative fruit grow- 
ers’ associations like those at 
Sturgeon Bay and Bayfield, a 
group of fruit growers who handle 
their fruit more or iess as a unit. 
It is a fine thing and absolutely 
necessary. It is quite easy to or- 
ganize such associations in com- 
munities where fruit growing has 
become an important commercial 
industry, but we have some other 
communities that are nearly as im- 
portant, if not as important from 
the standpoint of development of 
horticulture in Wisconsin, as Bay- 
field and Sturgeon Bay. Yet, the 
gi owers in some of those sections 
do not happen to be numerous 
enough to make possible a co- 
operative organization. Neither 
do they grow sufficient fruit to 
make it possible for them to handle 
their commodity most advantage- 
ously as individuals. 
In this improvement of our 
marketing conditions, we need 
some sort of an organization, po si- 
blv not an organization in the 
sense in which we usuaUy use the 
term, but we need some method by 
which we can have what we might 
practically term a fruit clearing 
house. Now a fruit clearing house 
is not possible until we have that 
better fruit which I have already 
suggested. A fruit clearing house, 
if it is to be operated, necessitates 
that these growers who are scat- 
tered, who cannot co-operate suc- 
cessfully, produce such fruit and 
so pack it that those in charge of 
the clearing house know that when 
they recommend a grower or a 
community, that the buyer is go- 
ing to be able to get in that locality 
the kind of commodity the clear- 
( Continued on Page 112 ) 
