THIRTY-THIRD BlENNIAT SESSION 
241 
varieties are at their best. I have been informed that one of the practical 
difficulties encountered in the marketing of apples is the fact that consumefs 
sometimes buy in the early fall varieties that are not at their best until 
about Christmas time or later. The consequence of this may be that vari- 
eties, which should be consumed early in the season, may be held too long 
and deteriorate or may be pushed on to the market at lower prices than 
they would otherwise command. I have no doubt that an educational cam- 
paign along the lines that I have suggested would greatly enlarge the con- 
sumption of apples and afford a profitable market for a substantial increase 
in production. 
I have spoken of co-operation among fruit growers, but I believe that 
the principle may be carried further and embrace not only the producers, 
but those engaged in the buying and selling of fruits and the transportation 
agencies. It is apparent, I think, that the handler of any fruit — the so-called 
middleman — is as much interested in broadening the market and in putting 
out each variety at the most favorable season as is the producer, and that 
there should be effective co-operation to this end. 
In the general work of bringing about a more satisfactory marketing 
and distribution of fruit there is, I believe, room for co-operation by the 
railways. Their functions are the transportation of persons and property 
and their primary duty in relation to the fruit business is to handle con- 
signments as satisfactorily as may be practicable. I believe, however, that 
a railway company may go a step further and that, so far as it can do so 
consistently with sound business principles, it may properly co-operate 
with the people along its lines in movements tending to increase the volume 
of traffic. Unquestionably one of the ways by which this may be done is 
by facilitating marketing. Acting on this principle, the Railway Company 
that I have the honor to represent and the companies associated with it 
have underaken a broad and comprehensive work along co-operative lines 
for the development of agriculture and horticulture in the territory served 
by them. When the Mexican boll weevil spread into territory adjacent to 
car lines east of the Mississippi River it was realized that the ootton farmers 
in those localities were face to face with new and difficult problems, upon the 
successful solution of which the continued prosperity not only of the farmer 
but of the merchant, the banker, the professional man, and the railway de- 
pended. We organized a corps of experts to advise farmers as to the best 
methods of combating the weevil so as to preserve cotton as a cash crop. 
This involved more intensive farming, some reduction in cotton acreage, 
and the deyotion of the land thus released to other crops. The success 
of the work which we did in the boll weevil territory led to our extending 
this system of co-operation over all of our lines by the organization of a 
Department of Farm Improvement Work. It developed that farmers in the 
boll weevil territory and in other parts of the SCutheastern States, who 
were undertaking the growing of new crops, were not always familiar with 
the methods by which they should be marketed and that in some cases they 
were not able to market their products successfully. This led us, on the 
1st of January of the present year, to appoint four market agents to co- 
operate with producers along our lines for the successful marketing of their 
