No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 579 



Methods of marketing are being studied more than ever before. 

 Growers have discovered that the appearance of their produce has 

 more to do in securing good prices than anything else. Every pos- 

 sible effort is being made to place the vegetables on the market in 

 a neat, attractive condition. Greater care is exercised in the selec- 

 tion of packages. Special means of attracting attention are being 

 employed, such as the use of narrow blue or red tape for bunching 

 asparagus, rhubarb and celery. We have learned that careful hand- 

 ling in the harvesting of vegetables counts for a great deal and that 

 too much care cannot be exercised in grading and sorting. All of 

 the.sc items are important in securing good prices and I believe that 

 the most important lesson to be learned by the average market 

 gardener is the skillful marketing of his vegetables. 



If there are any questions I can answer, I shall be glad to 'do so. 



A Member: What would you do for the maggot which causes so 

 much injury to our cabbage? 



PROP. WATTS: It has been suggested that we use small card- 

 board disks, and slip them over the plants very early. Carbolic acid 

 emulsion has also been used with good effect. 



MR. YOUNGS: In the early days of my fruit growing I had to do 

 something for a living, so I raised cabbage. We had the maggot, 

 and we used saltpeter water. It will kill the worm and hasten the 

 growth of the plant. Up in Waterford they grow cabbage very 

 largely, and near Ashtabula, I have seen thirty-five and forty acres 

 of growing lettuce. Ashtabula, of course, is in Ohio, but near 

 enough for us to annex it. 



MR. HALE: I was deeply interested in the gingery talk of Prof. 

 Watts. That is what the horticultural society of which I have 

 talked, tries to impress upon its members — that the selling end is 

 the profitable end of the crop. The trouble with our fruit growers 

 has been that they never go near the cities, to watch the markets. 

 They stay at home and look after the growing end of the work. 

 What you want to do is to go to the market and meet the men who 

 buy our fruits, and see what they want and what they really are 

 buying, and when you do so you will notice that it is always the 

 attractive looking product that brings the highest prices. A product 

 of high quality loses a good deal of its selling power if it is pre- 

 sented in an unattractive manner, while a product of high quality, 

 presented so as to catch the eye, will catch the purse of the buyer as 

 well. I don't doubt that red ribbon that the professor was talk- 

 ing about was cotton tape, which the grower bought for about half 

 a cent a mile. Right down in the asparagus district of Chicago, 

 near South Water street, the Michigan shippers send in their 

 product, and I have seen the boxes come in old and dirty, kicked 

 around there for awhile, and finally find their way back to the 

 owner — regular "old subscriber" boxes, I call them — tied with coarse 

 twine, and showing all over the same sandy soil. Then near them I 

 have seen another lot, in clean, white boxes, with the owner's name 

 stenciled on them, and the asparagus nicely grouped and tied up 

 with a pink ribbon. What was the difference? Why, the "old sub- 

 scriber" brand sold at cents, while the ''best girl" brand sold at 10 

 cents. There was that asparagus jumping from 6 cents to 10 cents 

 just because the grower had known enough to put it on the market 



