AFTERNOON SESSION.

The meeting was called to order soon after two o'clock by Secretary SESSIONS, who said: Mr. E. W. WOOD of West Newton, chairman of the executive committee of the Board, a gentleman who is well acquainted with the subject we have to discuss this afternoon, will preside.

Mr. WOOD. The subject selected for this afternoon's discussion reads as follows, "Fruit Growing in Massachusetts." This is a subject of especial interest to the farmers of this locality. Worcester County is the banner county of the State in fruit growing, and the fruit product contributes largely to the agricultural products of this county; and when we remember that by the national census of 1880, of the 2,461 counties in the United States there was not a county where the agricultural products equalled those of Worcester County; and when we remember that by the State census of 1885, of all the towns and cities of the Commonwealth, about 350, the agricultural products of the city of Worcester were larger than those of any other city or town in the Commonwealth (and it would be interesting to know how largely the fruit product contributes to this amount), — I think it will be admitted by those familiar with this section of the State that there is no other agricultural product for which as much is received that gets so little attention from the farmers generally as the fruit product. That product, especially the leading fruit product of New England, is to most of the farmers an incidental rather than a leading product.

The committee have selected to open the discussion of this question this afternoon a gentleman who can speak from a long practical and successful experience. I have the pleasure of introducing to the audience Mr. J. H. HALE of South Glastonbury, Conn.

FRUIT GROWING IN MASSACHUSETTS.*

BY J. H. HALE, SOUTH GLASTONBURY, CONN.

Mr. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:- I regret, in the first place, to see so few ladies here, because wherever I find very successful fruit culture there I find the ladies thoroughly interested in it. I say to you, brother farmers, that you ought not to leave your wives, daughters and "best girls" at home. You ought never to come to a convention of this kind without the ladies.

The subject which has been assigned to me this afternoon, Fruit Culture in Massachusetts," is such a broad one that it would really take up the whole of the rest of this session to just begin to talk about it, and if I did not see on the program the names of several distinguished speakers who are to address you this evening, to-morrow and Thursday, I should just start in talking and keep it up just as long as you could stand it. But that seems to be impossible, and it is also impossible for me in a portion of one afternoon to go into the discussion of special methods of fruit culture, covering all the varieties of fruit that may be grown in Massachusetts and New England. So I propose to say but very little in that line, but to talk on the general subject of fruit culture, from a business stand-point.

My own personal work and some public work in connection with gathering statistics of horticulture for the eleventh census of the United States has given me during the past few years an insight into the great and growing horticultural industries of this country. Horticulture is growing in some sections of the United States, South and West and on the Pacific coast, into a great commercial business, just as much of a business as that of your manufactures here in Massachusetts; and in looking at the broad acres that have been devoted to

Stenographic Report by J. M. W. Yerrinton.

orchards and vineyards the question always came to my mind, Where is the market? And on looking at the map of the United States, knowing the whole country as well as I do, I knew at once that New England was the best part of that market, because between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean and north of the Ohio River is where the people consume most of the fruits grown on the Pacific coast and in the South. I am speaking now of the deciduous fruits that may be grown here, not considering at all the semi-tropic and citrus fruit. Considering where the markets were where these fruits are to be sold; considering that nearly every carload of deciduous fruit that comes from California into the markets of Massachusetts could be supplied by Massachusetts farmers; considering that the freight tax levied by the railroad companies was from $300 to $600 per car, for I saw six cars unloaded in New York two or three years ago on which the freight was $3,600, and similar carloads of fruit coming from the extreme South on which the railroad tax was from $200 to $300,-considering these things, I have wondered why the farmers of New England, who might save all that, or a very large part of it, and have the benefit of the market in addition, did not make a business of the production of this fruit. Much of the fruit coming from these distant points, as I have seen it grown, seen it gathered, seen it on its way, and seen it in the markets of Massachusetts and all through New England, sells well, sells at good prices, very largely because it is put up in attractive shape. The fruit packers are men who thoroughly understand their business, and pack their fruit in the best possible manner to stand this long transit and have it show up in a fine and attractive style in the market. They have studied the business in all its aspects, and know how to take advantage of favorable conditions of the market in any section of the country. The California fruit in most instances, even when allowed to ripen on the tree, is inferior to much that can be grown here; and it has to be picked in a green condition and has to take so long a journey that it bears no comparison in quality to that which can be grown here in Massachusetts; and yet there are hundreds of thousands, I suppose literally millions, of dollars paid

by your people for fruit that might be produced here at home.

The great markets for fruit in the United States are east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio, but the very best of them all are in New England. Noticing the packing of fruit in California, in Colorado, in Texas, in the lower Mississippi valley, in Georgia and in Florida, I have noticed that if there was anything extra produced they sent it on here to New England, knowing that here is where they can dispose of their very choicest fruit at the highest prices, because here the people are ready to pay the most money for it. The reason is that wherever any class of people become more refined and more cultivated in their tastes the greater consumers they are of all horticultural products; and New England is where the people are the greatest consumers of fruit and horticultural products of every kind, greater than in any other section of the country and probably of the world. You have that market right here at home, and why is not Massachusetts doing more to meet the demands of that market? Nobody can say that the market is ever oversupplied with choice fruit. There is often an abundance of inferior grade, selling at prices which do not pay for the culture, but rarely is the market supplied, and never oversupplied, with the choicest productions.

The present system of fruit culture here in Massachusetts, speaking in a general way, is that on every farm there are more or less fruit trees, apples especially, which, as the chairman well said in his opening address, receive no care whatever. The trees are simply put into the ground, and if they do not get broken by some stray cattle in the first two or three years of their lives they may in time be able to "paddle their own canoe," and even under the most adverse circumstances give some return to their owners. They pay no tax on the trees, do not spend any time or money in pruning them, fertilizing them, or cultivating the soil, and when the time comes to sell the fruit they send it to the nearest local market, packed in a hap-hazard way, and take what they can get for it. Very often it is a disgrace to the market and to any farmer who brings it there.

Small fruits are grown more as a specialty, and often pay

handsome profits. A few peaches are grown as a specialty by some farmers, and as this is done with more care and the fruit marketed with more intelligence, there are better profits. The only way, it seems to me, out of this difficulty is to go into the production of fruit in New England as a matter of business, go into it from a business stand-point. I try to urge upon people who are setting out trees for a little orchard or a great orchard to study the business of growing fruit just as successful cattle men study their business. Make a business of it, study it and understand it, just as your sharp, alert dairymen study the subject of cattle foods. That is just what we have got to do, if the business is ever to be what it ought to be. In the first place, study yourselves, then study the plant, the soil and the market, and then there will be your opportunity. There is a growing desire for knowledge of these things, but on the whole it is hard to find any considerable number of farmers or fruit growers who know very much about the business from a business stand-point.

Three years ago I was placed in charge of five special horticultural investigations of the Census Bureau at Washington, and one of the things I had to do was to learn all I could about certain fruit interests of the country, about the soils, the varieties, the markets, the picking and handling, and the work all the way through; and I got up a schedule of questions that I sent to the fruit growers all over the country. I had the names of all the fruit growers in the United States who produced anything for sale, and of all the commercial men who handled these products, and I sent one of these schedules to every man whose name I had, asking for this information. I am ashamed to say, brother farmers, that I often got more information in regard to the growing and management of fruit say in Worcester County, Mass., from some men in the city of Boston who were dealers than I could get from any farmer or fruit grower in Worcester County, taking it as a whole. I wanted to learn something about certain branches of fruit culture in the lower part of the State of Alabama, and I thought if I could get hold of some men there engaged in fruit culture I could get the desired information; but I found I had to go to men in the