Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1895-07-29
HOME INDUSTRIES.
An Observer Speaks Critically of Busi-
ness Methods that Injure the
Community.
To the Editor of the New Mexican.

To the Editor of the New Mexican.
Santa Fe, July 29.-Two or three days
ago you commented editorially upon the
necessity which exists for citizens of
Santa Fe to stand together; you pointed
to the example of Denver, Colorado
Springs and other thriving communities,
which once, only a few years ago, we're
not so large or prosperous as Santa Fe,
and you particularly alluded to the neces-
sity of encouraging and supporting the
| fruit industry. Your remarks were most
timely, for there is disposition on the
part of dealers and residents to look
everywhere rather than to the Santa Fe
growers for the fruit required for sale or
consumption in the city, and this although
it is admitted all sides that our own pro-
duct can not be excelled.
Do you think it has ever occurred to the
boarding houses, to the wealthier residents
of Santa Fe, to the hotel keepers and to
the dealers that in placing unripe fruit
from California, Arizona, Texas and else
where before the consumer they are in
t1icting wanton injury upon this com
munity, and especially upon the unfor-
tunate invalid who has sought our doors
for renewed health? The fruit that comes
from the points mentioned is unripe and
therefore more or less unfit for any but
the most robust digestion. 1t is unripe
because it must be picked unripe in order
that it may be transported to distant
destination in marketable condition. And
what is the only excuse for foisting off
upon this community this inferior fruit?
Simply that it comes in earlier, and that
the pampered palate may thus bo ticFled
few weeks sooner with a fruit that is not
yet mature in this locality.
The whole community is injured by
sucn course of action. First, the health
seeker, by overtaxing already enfeebled
digestive organs; second, the merchant,
by sending money out of the town that
could be and ought to be kept in the COM
munity; thirdly, the fruit grower, because
after the public has been supplied with
strawberries, raspberries, cherries, peach
es, apricots, ETC., out of season and more
or less tasteless at more or less exorbi-
tant prices, the same public is not willing
to purchase at any price the same fruits
perfection month or two later.
| 1t should be borne in mind that we can
not have the glorious climate of which
we boast and have strawberries ripe at
Christmas. No horticultural skill can
alter the seasons, nor would our fruit be
so good as it is if it ripened at the same
time as fruit in southern California. And
lastly the whole territory is injured, for
these remarks do not apply to Santa Fe
only. The stranger judges of the horti-
cultural possibilities of a country by
| what he sees and eats more than by what
| he is told. 1t is a common remark that,
81 have never tasted any good fruit in
! New Mexico," or, as visitors frequently
say in my garden, 81 have never tasted
such fruit RS this in Santa Fe. | never
see it on the table at the sanitarium or at
the hotel, and there is none for sale in
the stores nor on the street." 1t is not
remarkable that the stranger doea not
see good fruit peddled in the street, be-
cause the careless way of handling it very
soon injures the appearance and the
greater part of it has been picked un-
ripe and comes from distance, but it ia
rather curious that in other towns Santa
Fe fruit tops the market and is always
sought for, while at home the growers
have to pack and ship it in order to find
a sale. Fruit growing is the only in
dustry thriving amongst us at the present
time, the only resource which brings
money into the town, and yet the mer-
chants and hotel keepers who are de-
pendent upon the community for living
are annually paying away thousands of