32 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



for waking us up, if we will only stay awake. They will have to find 

 another market if we do, as we have the fruit that has the quality. I 

 am glad to see that they are doing it in this section. I think that this 

 is one of the most important questions, and I feel that I am not capable 

 by a long ways of doing the packing of our fruit justice. In talking 

 with one of the cold storage men from Cleveland a year ago he made 

 this statement — that sixty per cent of the fruit in their cold storage 

 house was from the West. Now I would like to ask each of you why 

 this was the case. They cannot grow any better quality, and they can't 

 grow as good. Then why? For this very reason — the dealers know 

 what they are going to buy when they buy that box of apples, and they 

 don't know when they buy a barrel. If you were going to buy for your- 

 self, if you wanted a high grade article, you would want to examine a 

 good many barrels of apples that were put up ^in. that way before you 

 bought, or you would expect only about one-tenth perfect fruit. Now 

 when you buy boxes of apples you know exactly how many apples are 

 in the box, and you know they are of uniform size and color. They are 

 free from blemish; they are free from worm injury; they are free from 

 fungus trouble and bruise. How many barrels could you buy in the same 

 condition? Now I am not ready to say we should box all our apples, but 

 if we expect to have our markets for ourselves, or have the first choice 

 of our markets, even with the handicap of fifty cents for freight from 

 the West, we will have to practice the same principle in the grading 

 and packing. Now I believe we ought to put it up in a different style 

 of pack because we grow a better quality and we don't want to adver- 

 tise our Western brother by selling a good quality of Eastern apples 

 and calling them Western apples; we want them to know they are 

 Eastern apples and to want another box. Now I believe we can solve 

 this question in some sections, in some portions of some states espe- 

 cially, by a co-operative marketing association. In our own state, how- 

 ever, our fruit interests are so scattered that it is going to be a difficult 

 problem, but I will say more later on that subject. Now coming to 

 our own fruit, especially in our line, we have followed the boxing to 

 some extent but not largely. With us, bushels seem to be the best, and 

 when we pack in the bushels we want to be very particular as to the 

 grade. We are using for our own pack largely the 20-pound and bushel 

 baskets, and even in packing into these we grade very carefully, and 

 we try to guarantee to the man that is buying a basket of our fruit 

 that they are just as good on top as they are in the bottom, and we 

 also try and guarantee that they are just as good in the bottom as 

 they are on the top. We place the rosy cheek up on the top, but we 

 want the rosy cheek on all of them, so that the person buying comes 

 back for more of the same kind at the same price. If we do not pack it 

 properly we cannot expect results and success in a financial way from 

 our fruit interests. It makes me think of the story of the father who 

 sent his boy to market one winter's day with a load of potatoes in sacks. 

 He came home at night with the potatoes and his father said ''Did you 

 sell them?" The boy says "No, I could not sell them." The father 

 asked him if he tried and the boy said "Yes." "What did you do?" 

 "Why, somebody asked me what I had in the sacks and I said it was 

 none of their business." 



Now just a word in reference to the packing of peaches — those for 

 immediate use, within twenty-four hours. In the early part of the sea- 



