STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. IO7 



his suburban home. He says we have no idea what the demand 

 is for a package of that kind. You go to the large cities today — 

 Dr. Twitchell will bear me out — watch them leave the New 

 York Central in the fall of the year, and you will see hundreds 

 of them trooping through the station, going to their suburban 

 homes, carrying one or two baskets of grapes ; and that same 

 rule will apply to such fancy varieties as Mcintosh Red and 

 some special varieties. But at the same time we don't want to 

 get the idea of boxing everything or anything. That is all 

 wrong. It just applies to a few special fancy table grades. But 

 he says there is a demand for that kind of a package, and a 

 big demand, something that can be carried from these fancy 

 fruit stands without any expense. 



Prof. Hedrick : I can quite agree with all that. I only want 

 to say a word in regard to the main part of the apple crop. 



Mr. Keyser : I think so, too. For our commercial apple the 

 barrel is undoubtedly the package. 



Question : Don't you think one of the reasons why the aver- 

 age consumer can't buy your fancy fruit is on account of the 

 high price the retailer charges? I was in a store the other day. 

 They had some Wealthy apples, raised and packed in Massa- 

 chusetts, and they had a tag on them, fifty cents a dozen. Now 

 look at the count on the end of the box. It was 138. That is 

 practically twelve dozen. This would be around $6 a box. I 

 went up to the fruit man and asked him what he had to pay 

 for the box to the grower and he said $3.50. Now you see the 

 retailer is making $2.50 a box profit. If he could only cut the 

 price a little, I think that fancy stuff would get in more hands 

 and increase the consumption. 



Prof. Hedrick : People are going to buy oranges and grape- 

 fruit when they have to pay that price for apples. 



Prof. Brown : A year ago the students at the college packed 

 some hundred boxes of apples. Not having fancy and No. i, 

 we pack No. 2. Some culls got in, by the way. Not knowing 

 what to do with them, I sent them to Boston, and I can say 

 that the price I got was equivalent, if not a little better, than 

 the same class of fruit in barrels. The box cost me practically 

 the same as the barrel. The students' labor probably would 

 have thrown the balance the other way. But the point is this : 

 That people in the cities who buy No. 2 in boxes will buy culls 



