STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. ^7 



about $1,000 in money beside the labor that we put in ourselves. 

 I built it five years ago. Probably if I had hired all the 

 work done and everything it would have cost me about $1,500. 



Q. What is the expense in Boston cold storage houses for 

 the season where you have stored your fruit you spoke of? 



Mr. Clark : The expense of putting apples in these large 

 storehouses of course depends on the amount that you put in. 

 Last year it was easy to get storage space. This year I was told 

 in the Quincy Market cold storage house, controlled by a trust 

 now, it is almost impossible to get them to offer you a space in 

 the cold storage house because they are using it for butter and 

 eggs and that class of products which they hold longer and 

 charge them more for the space than for apples. The firm that 

 I have shipped to ever since I began, engaged space last year for 

 5,000 barrels, they said they were going to ; well all of mine went 

 right in that I shipped, some 1,600 barrels. This year they said 

 they began in July to try to engage space and they wouldn't 

 promise them any, and they did get space for a carload for me 

 and I shipped them, then they told me to ship and take the 

 chances, so I billed right to the cold storage house and they 

 wrote me they went in all right, but you took your chances. So 

 it is harder to get space now than it was. There is cold storage 

 in Springfield, Mass., that is twenty miles below where I live. 

 Their price for the season was 40 cents a barrel. In Boston, the 

 price for 5,000 barrels for the season, that is from October to 

 May, after the first of May it is so much a month per barrel, but 

 it is about 35 cents a barrel, that is what it costs. As far as the 

 cost of this storage being an expense to the grower, it is not. 

 Why, just think of it! I put in 1,600 barrels of apples m the 

 cold storage in Boston last year, right from the orchard as they 

 were barreled. When they sent me my check for the apples, the 

 number of barrels of apples was not a single barrel less than 

 what I sent. There w^asn't a single apple for shrinkage dis- 

 counted, while if they had been in ordinary storage there would 

 have been more than 35 cents a barrel waste. Without an}' 

 decay it would have taken more than that to fill the barrels what 

 they would have shrunk. So that when you come down to the 

 cost of cold storage, if you will figure the shrinkage and waste 

 of your apples in common storage, you have more apples in the 

 spring than you have with your common storage and your stor- 



