REPORTS OF LOCAL. SOCIETIES. 353 



Fruit-men of California and Florida are fast working out this problem, 

 with much satisfaction to themselves, and bid fair to revolutionize the 

 whole system of disposing of their products. California fruits are dis- 

 posed of by California men, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, having no 

 commission men or houses between the producer and the retailer. I 

 would not combine so much to govern and control market prices as to 

 obtain them. You have all had experience with commission houses 

 enough to know that often we get the commission and they retain the pay 

 for the fruit. 



Every grower should do his own packing or superintend it; in small 

 fruits giving honest measure and throwing out all inferior specimens. In 

 apples, all should be placed over his name as a guarantee of honest work, 

 and should be graded from the top to the bottom of the barrel. Do not 

 put the handsome specimens at the top of the barrel and the poor ones 

 below, facing for the purpose of deceiving the purchaser. Good speci- 

 mens may be used for facing, provided all below are equally good. But 

 the practice of using large, perfect specimens for " facers," and filling the 

 remainder of the package with inferior specimens, is a fraud that should 

 be condemned by every honest man. There is nothing that has injured 

 the reputation of Michigan apples so much as the dishonest packing that 

 has been practiced for years, not so much by farmers as by professional 

 packers. I repeat again, that every fruitgrower should do his own pack- 

 ing, and the first and most important requirement is honesty; the second, 

 careful grading. Much could be said about the careful grading of fruit, 

 especially apples, but it is not the design of this paper to enter into detail. 

 I have only given so much general direction in packing apples because I 

 have become thoroughly disgusted with our present methods, which allow 

 persons to do the packing who are not interested in the good reputation of 

 either ourselves or our fruit, and for whose every dishonest act we are 

 held responsible. Fruit-men have enough of their own mistakes to 

 answer for, without voluntarily becoming responsible for the dishonest 

 acts of any who may deal in their products. 



In regard to Mr. Granger's plan of setting an apple orchard, Mr. Schuh 

 of Wayland has quite clearly demonstrated that it will take at least 

 seventy-five per cent. Wageners to set, instead of fifty. I readily see he 

 is right, and you can verify it if you will take a few moments. Perhaps a 

 plat of such an orchard drawn here will save you time : 



BWBWBWBWBWBW 

 WWWWWWWWWW WW 

 BWBWBWBWBWBW 

 WWWWWWWWWW WW 



and so on to the end. Mr. Granger evidently had not carefully considered 

 the mathematical part of his plan. 



A vote taken by the ladies present, for the choice of strawberries for 

 canning, resulted: Wilson 7, Crescent 2, Capt. Jack 2, Jucunda 1. 



Evening Session. 



L. A. Lilly gave a talk upon the codlin moth. Almost everything we 

 grow has its enemies, which mast be guarded against and destroyed in 

 order to obtain anything like reasonable results. There are many obsta- 

 cles in the way of successful fruitgrowing which must be understood to 

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