PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUMMER MEETING. 143 



pounds.-' The differing products, with their varying weights, will cut a 

 figure only by guaranteeing the fact that all packages stamped alike are 

 of the same cubic capacity. 



Mr. Graham: Suppose a package was marked, "48.1 cubic inches." It 

 is something people know very little about, how much 43.1 cubic inches 

 are; but if you say, "This is a ten-pound basket". "This is an eight-pound 

 basket or twenty-pound basket", everyone knows what that is. The 

 effect would be just the same as if the law said, "A certain size of pack- 

 age shall be nmrked Xo. 3." Then, if a man went into the market, he 

 would know every time that a package marked three would be just the 

 same as one he bought last year, marked three, so far as its cubic capacity 

 is concerned. One gentleman manufacturing baskets told me that a 

 year or so ago he had a trade in one town of three carloads per week of 

 grape baskets, and it lasted two or three weeks, then stopped short, and 

 he did not know what was the matter. He went to the town, and there 

 learned that someone had introduced several carloads of baskets which 

 held three quarters of a pound less. His trade stopped entirely. Today 

 that smaller basket is i)robably the standard size there. 



^Tr. rteid: In making up the schedule for that law, the ten-pound 

 basket was designed to hold one fifth of the Winchester bushel, so as to 

 make as little change from the standard fruit package as might be. The 

 marking of the package "ten pounds" is conventional, but it provides a 

 uuiforn)ity ^hich is desirable. 



Mr. Morrill : I think, gentlemen, that you can readily see the point. 

 ]Srichigan is getting to a condition where it produces an enormous amount 

 of fruit. We must begin to handle it in carloads. Buyers are looking 

 for that trade everywhere, but they are not looking for it in a place 

 where, when they order a thousand baskets of grapes or peaches, they 

 don't know what that means. If they order a thousand fifth baskets of 

 peaches, and it means fifths, sixths, and sevenths when they get them, 

 they are not going to deal there. (Jther places are taking the business 

 we should have. If the buyer can sit in his office and can telegraph over 

 here to the head of an organization, " We want a carload of apples, 

 standard barrels and standard packing," and a man can quote back a 

 price to him, and furnish the fruit immediately, even if collected from a 

 dozen people, and that fruit opens up exactly as the buyer expects, you 

 at once have a trade established. Now, where in Michigan can we do 

 that? But when you have established a standard, and keep working 

 to it, with the transx^ortation facilities you have (unequaled by any fruit- 

 growing state in the Union), you have the key to the situation. Until 

 that is done we are all at sea. I am sorry that, with 500 fruitgrowers in 

 the vicinity of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, there are not more here. I 

 wish they were, for all this is a matter of self-preservation. I venture 

 that, unless some calamity happens to our fruit, within ten years many 

 of our people will find it difficult to pay their taxes; many perhaps will 

 go out of the business in disgust, unless they are willing to use business- 

 like methods, as do other business men. 



Mr. George Comings: I hope this resolution will be passed, and that 

 there will be a strong effort made by the fruitgrowers of Michigan to 

 insist upon the marking of packages. 



