EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 39 



the merchant's door. This is a pretty strong assertion, but it is strictly true. 

 It is put upon the docks as carefully as eggs. 



C. J. Monroe: Yet no fruit grower goes to Chicago in the season but sees 

 fruit handled in a way to make him nervous. I have seen it piled upon 

 express wagons in great loads, the packages in all sorts of improper positions, 

 on the sides, the ends, upside down, and very roughly handled. Th*^ em- 

 ployes of boats are careful. One or two tossings will do no harm, but three 

 or four are damaging, as examination will show. 



E. H. Scott : I have known great injury to result to berry boxes from pil- 

 ing them in a slanting position. 



J. F. Taylor: That is just the trouble. They should all be piled level. I 

 have seen fruit stacked bottom upward as often as any other way. Such treat- 

 ment is specially fatal to berries. But very little rough handling gives them 

 a bad appearance. Hauling and stacking do more harm than handling. 



Mr. H. H. Hayes of Talmadge, Ottawa county, was asked what package 

 he uses for his Niagara grapes, and answered that it is the Climax, a kind 

 having a board bottom and close veneer top secured by six fastenings. They 

 cost three and a half cents each. 



Pres't Lyon : Such are used for peaches, at South Haven, to some extent, 



Mr. Cook asked Mr. Barnett what packages he recommended for peaches. 



Mr. Barnett: For really choice fruit, the fifth basket; for medium (and 

 there were but few such this year), the bushel basket is best ; and for poor 

 fruit, the bushel by all means, it is so much more easily dumped ! 



E. M. Kellogg of Ionia: I put up my fruit in such a way as to tempt the 

 consumer by its appearance. But this is for ready use. It takes 24 hours to 

 reach a great city [Mr. Barnett: Say Milwaukee !] and 48 hours to get to the 

 northwest, and condition at time of packing must be calculated accordingly. 

 There should be three grades of ripeness — for home use, for the immediate 

 market, and for the distant market. The same must be considered in con- 

 nection with apples ; and the despised Rome Beauty, Ben Davis and Baldwin 

 will turn up next February when the better sorts are gone. 



SPRAYING WITH ARSENITES. 



Taking up the subject of spraying with arsenites, the secretary read the 

 following, from Mr. N. J. Strong, of Fairfield: 



I have one orchard of 130 trees, set about sixteen years ago, and it has 

 borne several years, but the apples have been nearly worthless until this 

 year, when I packed fifty-six barrels of first-class fruit and seven of seconds, 

 besides a wagon load of windfalls. And this is how it happened : About five 

 days after the blossoms had fallen I mixed six to seven ounces of London 

 purple with fifty-three gallons of water, and with a good force-pump and 

 spraying nozzle went over the trees once, and could go only one side of the 

 row on account of a very high wind ; but I threw spray over the trees as much 

 as possible. If in three weeks I had gone over the orchard again, I have no 

 doubt a still larger per cent of fruit would have been first-class. 



My old orchard of 159 trees, set nearly fifty years ago. was not sprayed, and 

 eighty per cent of its fruit was wormy. All of my neighbors with whom I 

 have talked say they culled out over half in packing. They did not spray. 



The same day I sprayed my plum trees and a few peaches, but the mixture 

 was too strong for the latter, as it injured the foliage, but not so with the 



