INDIANA HOETICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 239 



With the excellent agi'icultural newspapers we now have, there is little 

 excuse for a fruit grower remaining ignorant on these subjects. Some 

 of our leading papers malie a special effort to inform their subscribers on 

 crop and marliet prospects, and a fruit grower has scarcely more excuse 

 for being ignorant on these matters than has the merchant for being 

 ignorant of the market value of his goods. 



Another way by which fruit growers often come short of their oppor- 

 tunities is by putting their fruit up in an improper manner. Second-hand 

 barrels, putting the best fruit at the top and bottom of the barrel, and 

 mixing poor and good fruit in the same barrel all tend to reduce the 

 market value of the product. A buyer is not readily deceived as to the 

 contents of a barrel of apples, but in making an offer for it he generally 

 offers about what he regards the poorer samples worth. He can not afford 

 to do much better than this. 



Another way by which the fruit grower may reap an advantage is by 

 putting his name on the barrel. This tells the buyer at once that he is 

 not ashamed of his fruit. In the commercial world a sample of goods 

 offered without the manufacturer's name is always regarded with sus- 

 picion. I know of an instance where a man sold his crop of apples at a 

 fine price by simply stenciling his name and address plainly on some 

 barrels of early fruit that he had shipped to market. A commission man 

 traveled over a hundred miles to find his orchard. 



Adjourned. 



