$2 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



price of $3.15 per barrel for A and B grade Baldwins, Green- 

 ings, Spies and Mcintosh varieties. 



Ten days later the New York State Department of Foods 

 and Markets sold in the courthouse at Syracuse, the apples in 

 the orchards of Onondaga county, and for the great sod cul- 

 tured orchards of Grant C. Hitchings and Mr. Knapp they 

 obtained $3.40 per barrel for A and B grade. This price 

 showed what an extreme advantage the trust apple buyers were 

 taking of the producers of apples in New York State. The 

 prices obtained by the Department at auction were wired all 

 over the United States and it standardized the price for barrel 

 packed apples throughout the United States. 



The department then began selling apples in New York 

 City daily, and whenever they have had the supply they have 

 conducted the sale of apples at auction in New York City each 

 and every day in the week, except Saturday and Sunday. As 

 a result, every grower of apples throughout the United States 

 has had an opportunity to ship his apples to the New York 

 State Department of Foods and Markets and have them sold 

 in an open market at public auction, at five per cent com- 

 mission, to the highest bidder. 



The railroad companies cooperated with the department 

 and turned over the use of their great docks without any ex- 

 pense, whatever, properly equipped for auction selling. Right 

 alongside these docks come the car floats with the loaded cars 

 on them and the fruits and vegetables are discharged direct 

 from the cars upon the dock, samples opened up. catalogues 

 printed, buyers inspect the goods and then they bid for the 

 goods what they consider them worth, and the goods are sent 

 direct from the dock to the retail food stores <-hroughout the 

 great city, saving an enormous amount of money each year in 

 cartage and unnecessary handling, eliminating at ^east one and 

 ofttimes three sets of middlemen who formerly handled these 

 goods and collect their tolls for handling. 



Under the old system of shipping to a commission man, the 

 grower of apples in New York State paid ten per cent to the 

 commission man who sold to the jobber, and the jobber was 

 obliged to take about fifteen per cent in order to pay his ex- 

 penses and then there were two cartages so that it cost the 

 grower, at the very lowest, thirty per cent to have his apples 



