236 
AMERICAN POMOIvOGICAI, SOCIETY 
the production of apples as well as health, strength, exercise and the en- 
joyment of life. It is the results that count. You know the Irish boy 
came home one night (I am Irish, so of course I can tell this story) and he 
wanted to ask his father a question. His father was not very well educated, 
but the boy said: “Father, the teacher gave us a question to-day in English 
that I do not know what to do with. It is in grammer and I do not know 
which word to use. Here it is: ‘When a hen comes cackling from her nest, 
would you say that she had been sitting or setting?’ ” The old gentleman 
scratched his head just a moment, then said : “Well now my boy, there 
is a much more important question than that. The most important thing to 
determine when a hen comes cackling from her nest is whether she has been 
laying or lying.” 
I want to say this to you however before closing; fruit growers need 
more organization; more practical organization; not only in their exchange 
of ideas as growers, but in the handling of the crop, the exploitation ; in the 
improvement of ideas as to the varieties of fruit planted for the future time, 
as well as in the marketing of the fruit and cooperative distribution of the 
product. There is much work also which can be done in the educative line 
as to the value of the apple as a healthful, nutritious food, looking toward 
the creation of a still larger demand. 
With the best location and the best transportation rates in this country, 
we are entitled to the full benefit of the same. Many of you were raised 
in this region, were here when the production of apples in this region was 
comparatively small and evidently transportation facilities were based on 
production in other section of the country where there was a larger tonnage; 
and as your present tonnage has developed the carriers have failed to re- 
arrange the rates to correspond with these later conditions, and this failure 
has been caused largely from your own negligence and your own lack of at- 
tention to the business outlook which you ought to have first in mind. 
Now there was sent out from this section of country last year approxi- 
mately thirty thousand carloads of apples. At the minimum car weight 
which is allowed by railroad corporations of twenty-four thousand pounds, 
those weighed at least 720,000,000 pounds — or 4,500,000 barrels. Now if 
the outcome of this action which you have instituted should result even in 
a reduction of an average of five cents per hundredweight, either the pro- 
ducer or the consumer with whom you deal would reap a benefit of over 
$360,000 a year. That might not go into your pocket directly, but it would 
tend to open a larger market for you; and you know the prospective in- 
crease of production is the primary thing upon which you must keep an 
eye. This enormous increase of production is coming through the stimulated 
transportation from the Pacific Coast, and from other directions. The 
necessity is apparent I take it for the application of business methods in 
matters of transportation — as in the lines of physical care, education of the 
people to the ultimate results, and marketing. 
I might occupy a much longer time in discussing these questions; but 
the hour is late, and I feel that I have said enough to give you a general 
outline of the rate situation as it pertains to the production of fruit in this 
particular region. 
