Winter Meeting. 345 



progressive fruit growers bought wooden water pails in which they 

 handled their peaches, pears and soft fruits. This was a marked 

 improvement, and many were the complimentary comments. Then 

 the Michigan peach basket, and the one-third bushel box came, the 

 IMichigan square cpiart berry box and the Leslie box; first the dry 

 measure, then the standard berry box. And as the demand for fruit 

 increased the commission men began handling fruit in a small way, 

 and under very crude conditions with most unsatisfactor}^ results. 



In 1872 I shipped several cars of apples to Council Blufifs, Iowa, 

 loaded in bulk in tight box cars. In 1873 we commenced handling 

 our apples in barrels, and I recollect how astonished I was when I 

 first saw the apple barrel press used, expecting to see the cider run 

 out from the lower end of the barrel. At this date we thought it 

 very necessar}^ to pick our apples and put them in piles in our 

 orchards, in order to go through a sweat, as we thought to enable 

 the apples to keep longer and better, not knowing that every day 

 our apples lay in this condition that they were damaging and de- 

 teriorating in value. We can now see how soon our apples become 

 ripe and mellow lying on the damp ground in the orchard in those 

 piles. 



When cold storage first began to be used for keeping fruit the 

 results were far from being satisfactory, and the results can be 

 attributed principally, to the condition the fruit was in when received 

 at the cold storage. Cold storage will never make from small, knotty, 

 wormy apples large smooth perfect fruit. Nor will it transform ripe 

 mellow fruit into hard, keeping stock, and any mistake made in 

 handling fruit can never be remedied by placing it in cold storage. 

 It has been but a few years since one of our most enterprising fruit 

 growers picked and barreled his apples very early putting them into 

 an unventilated cellar, and after letting them remain there for six 

 weeks hauled them twelve miles without repacking, every barrel 

 loose and slack in packing, and placed them in cold storage. Can 

 anyone wonder at the results? But at that time we heard the cold 

 storage companies censured for the condition this fruit was in when, 

 taken out, which was a very short time after being received. While 

 cold storage is not perfect yet, at this date, and very many things are 

 still to be learned in handling fruit, I feel sure that the fruit that 

 was handled for the World's Fair at St. Louis came out of cold storage 

 in better condition, held up longer on the table on exhibition than the 

 same varieties did at Chicago, Om.aha, Paris or Buffalo or Charleston. 



Allow me to cite one instance of some Jonathan apples that were 

 handled at St. Joseph, Mo., in 1903. These apples were handled 



