142 STATE POMOIvOGlCAL, SOCIETY. 



box. Do you throw away every apple, and not call it a first- 

 class apple, large and nice apple with no defect about it except 

 the stem has been pulled out? You have got to grade your 

 apples a great deal better than you ever did yet, I am afraid, if 

 you are going to bring yourself down to what you say other 

 people are doing and getting the best prices. So that I say again 

 at the foundation, the growers must grow better fruit, handle 

 their fruit better, and as they do they will for their own defense 

 put their fruit up well and send it to market and get good prices. 

 Now a commission merchant was saying to me the other day 

 that there ought to be a law passed forbidding anything less 

 than two inches in diameter to be shipped to market as a No. 2. 

 I said, "You don't know what you are talking about." Says 

 I, "It is all right for your side, but it is not all right for the 

 side of the grower. It would be a very nice thing for you to 

 have nothing but nice fruit coming here to market, but we that 

 grow it have got to pay our bills, and we have got to be careful 

 that we get out of our fruit all that there is in it." Now take 

 the No. 2 apples, take one case, for instance. I try to get out 

 of my No. 2 apples enough to pay me for handling my crop and 

 doing a larger portion of the work so that the No. i apples 

 belong to me after paying my bills. Now you see No. 2 apples 

 don't bring much. Now I will say this that last year, and I 

 think this year will be no worse than last year, my No. 2 apples 

 sold for $2.25 in Boston a barrel. Why, that wasn't a bad 

 price for No. 2 apples. We sold them in January and Febru- 

 ary. If you put your apples onto the market now, you won't 

 get much of anything for them after paying expenses, that is, 

 your No. 2 apples, after paying expenses, the cost of barrels, 

 commission and railroad cost. Everybody is shipping their 

 soft fruit that is not going to keep, to stand up any length of 

 time, into market now or they won't get anything for it. Now 

 if you can arrange it so that you can hold back that fruit until 

 the market is cleared, there is demand for such fruit. Not 

 every one in the cities can buy a barrel of apples — of nice choice 

 apples, or a bushel of nice choice apples ; they won't do it. But 

 there is a large number there that will buy a cheaper grade of 

 fruit when they wouldn't buy any fruit at all if it wasn't for 

 this cheaper grade. And as long as there is a call for this 

 . cheaper grade of fruit, put it up for what it is, send it to market 



