136 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



while the various expenses are reduced to a minimum. Transportation 

 companies, when dealing with large shippers, are also found to be more 

 pliable and willing to afford facilities that are grudgingh' given to 

 individuals of less pretensions. 



Grades, as denoting size of fruit, when once established should not be 

 changed. Our Fennville packing-house has been using four grade or 

 size-marks, viz. : x, xx, xxx, and " Fancy." These brands signif}- size 

 only, and range from the smallest size that is considered marketable to 

 largest or fancy size. Qualities other than size are specified by stamping 

 on the package the number of pounds' capacity, color of peach ("yellow" or 

 ''white"), ''ripe" or "hard," "high colored," "smooth," etc., the object 

 being to so describe the contents of the package that there can be no 

 misunderstanding on the j^art of the buyer as to what he is getting when 

 he buys a basket of our fruit. 



^Mth only one season's trial, we can not be said as 3'et to have passed 

 the experimental stage of the business. Time will be required to perfect 

 and develop. It is suggested that eventually a federation embracing all 

 the iiacking-houses will be consummated, with a board of control hav- 

 ing general supervision of the whole system of the state, whose duties 

 shall include the proper distribution of fruit, regulating the grading to 

 insure uniformity throughout the state, and to use the united weight of 

 the organization in dealing with the railroads. 



It would seem that all fruitgrowers should be willing to help along 

 a movement of this kind, realizing as they all do that improved methods 

 of packing and marketing our peaches is becoming an absolute necessity, 

 and that cooperative packing can be developed into a power that will 

 place Michigan, as a producer of choice fruits, in the foremost rank, and 

 Michigan fruitgrowers shall become known throughout the country as 

 an honorable and businesslike class of people. 



ny MR. C. F. HALE OF SHELBY. 



Cooperation and organization among fruitgrowers and farmers is a 

 theme that has long been argued and discussed, and I might say tried in 

 various ways, until it has become a general sa.ying with all classes that 

 you can not formulate any organization or cooperative plan or system to 

 nold farmers together. I am not going to say how^ much truth there 

 is in this, but I do say that the idea and plan are not only feasible but 

 practicable if rightly carried out. As the old saying is, in union there is 

 strength, and all know that this is true, as we have seen it demonstrated 

 many times. It is not my intention to take up much of your valuable 

 time with theories, but to give you some of our own experiences and 

 what led to our present plan of work. 



In the spring of ISOfi we organized a fruitgrowers' and shippers' asso~ 

 ciation, consisting of growers only at first, for the purpose of obtaining 

 better rates and facilities for shipping our fruit, which we accomplished 

 beyond our anticipation; as we found, when we went before the trans- 

 portation company and told them v/e represented so much business, we 

 w( re very cordially received, and concessions asked were nearly always 

 granted. This accomplished, we sought to obtain better prices for our 

 product by grading and packing it honestly and warranting it to be as 

 represented. Eight here was where Ave failed, and first saw the need of a 



