THE BOX PACKAGE; ITS USE AND LIMITATIONS. 



By S. W. Fletcher, Director of the Virginia Agricultural 

 Experiment Station 



(Abstract of address before the American Pomological Society, 



September 15, 1909.) 



The barrel has been the standard and almost the only package for 

 winter apples for over half a century. It has several distinct advan- 

 tages. Owing to its rounded sides, it can be packed easily and rapidly, 

 even by the unskilled, and, for the same reason, it can be handled 

 more easily by rolling than any other package of equal bulk. Until 

 within ten years it has also been a cheap package. Now barrels cost 

 most fruit growers from 30 cents to 40 cents, instead of 15 to 30 cents 

 as formerly. The apple barrel is an eastern package, and is made of 

 hardwood, usually of elm and oak, which are more common in the 

 east than in the west. 



History of the Box Package. 



The appe box, on the other hand, is a western package. Open 

 bushel boxes have long been used in the east for shipping vegetables 

 and early apples. The closed box has also been used, somewhat, by a 

 few individuals, notably by L. Woolverton, of Grimsby, Ont., who was 

 exporting wrapped apples in bushel boxes, 128 apples to the box, fifteen 

 years ago. But the real introduction of the apple box as a commercial 

 package for winter apples is coincident with the rise of commercial 

 apple growing in the Pacific coast states within the past fifteen years. 

 The prototype of the apple box is the orange box. The Pacific coast 

 apple growers face conditions that have made the box, rather than 

 the barrel, their almost exclusive apple package. The most important 

 condition is their great distance from markets, and consequent high 

 transportation charges. It costs 50 cents to raise a bushel of Hood 

 river apples, and 50 cents more to lay it down in New York. This 

 makes it imperative to economize space, and the box packs tighter in a 

 car than the barrel, especially the old fashioned barrel with a three or 

 four-inch bulge. n 



But the most important effect of the great distances and high rates 

 has been on the grading of the fruit. There would be.no profit in paying 

 such high transportation charges on inferior fruit. Only fruit that 

 will sell at the top of the market will justify the outlay. This means 

 carefully graded fruit, fully as much as high quality fruit. The box 

 package enforces careful grading. The shiftless "shuffle packing" is 



