76 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



In the West and Southwest most of the fruit is sent to market in 

 what is known as the "Hallock" a box five inches square, two 

 and one-half inches deep, bottom elevated half nn inch so as not to 

 crush the berries lielow and no slit or hole for ventilation. These 

 are packed three deep without any slots between them, in cheap 

 twenty-tour-quart gift-cases, and sell with the fruit. It is of great 

 importance, if you expect to find money in the small fruits, to pay 

 strict attention, to the careful gathering, packing and marketing of 

 the fruit. Be sure that your crate is packed so that the berries at 

 the bottom will prove as good or even better than tliose on top. If 

 you are packing a 32-quart crate of berries and you have one quart 

 that is not quite as good as the rest, put that on the top layer, so 

 that the dealer ma}' see it and understand that that is the poorest 

 one there, that when he has seen the top of the crate he has seen the 

 worst there is in it. That might not be good policy if you were 

 onl3' going to sell that one crate of berries, but if you are in tlie 

 business for profit you must make a name and a reputation, and 3'ou 

 cannot do any better than by absolutely hon jst packing. 



In Chicago a year ago last June, just when red raspberries were 

 coming in from Southern lilmois, I was there and visited the mark- 

 ets. They came in 24-quart cases, nailed up. The dealers were 

 opening them and showing them as the truckmen would bring them 

 in from the trains, and the grocers and fruit men were examining 

 them and buA'ing them at six and eight cents a quart. At one place 

 where I was, about half a truck load came in, and the proprietor 

 told the man to set them back in the back part of the store. Several 

 buyers came in and asked what he was asking for them and were 

 told ten cents ; and the}- would take three or four or a dozen crates, 

 and while I was there the}' were all sold and not one of them opened. 

 I inquired of the proprietor why he didn't open those crates. He 

 said, "You see that name on the top of the crate; that sells the 

 berry ; he is a man who has made a reputation in this market ; we 

 know that everything that comes from his place is carefully selected 

 before it is packed ; it is packed honestly ; the boxes are new and 

 clean and they are paitked full ; the berries are cooled before they 

 are packed, and when the} are nailed up we will not open them for 

 any man in Chicago ; if they will not buy them without their being 

 opened they may go without them." I had the Yankee curiosity to 

 travel three hundred miles south into Illinois to visit that man's farm, 

 to see what he was doing and how he was doing it. He has won 



