134 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



(7.) The regulation of packages. It is very desirable to have a more uni- 

 form package for the various fruits now sent to market. In the matter of 

 quart boxes there are three or four different sizes, shapes and styles in use. 

 As long as fruit growers do not give a decided preference for some one over 

 all others, manufacturers will continue to put upon the market whatever 

 style, size or form is demanded by the individual caprices and notions of the 

 several growers. This diversity of packages, though varying slightly one 

 from the other, increases the expense of manufacture, which necessarily 

 comes out of the consumer (not of the fruit but of the package). It has also 

 established the "snide" and forced it upon the trade. 



In the "belt" growers slionld aim to increase the size of the packages, 

 thus reducing very largely the cost, first of the package itself, the covering 

 used on the same, the cost of transportation and cartage, making in the end 

 a large percentage of the cost of getting our peaches on the market. Twenty 

 years ago we used the half-bushel basket and many were returned. Then 

 came the third-bushel. Thai was used for some years and finally superseded 

 by the quarter-bushel. This is still in use to some extent, and perhaps ex- 

 clusively in some localities; but it was too large for some growers and the 

 fifth-bushel came into use, and I am inclined to think in many cases this is 

 a "snide," like our "snide " berry boxes. At a glance we can hardly realize 

 the enormous additional expense of these small packages. If we are shipping 

 by car lots, paying by the car instead of by the package as we do on boats, 

 the difference in cost would be less. 



Delaware peaches have been shipped to our western markets for some 

 years in half-bushel baskets, without netting or other covering except peach 

 leaves — the same package, save the cover, we used twenty years ago. The 

 idea that a small package of fruit will sell for as much as a larger one, every- 

 thing else being equal, is a grand and fatal delusion. To satisfy ourselves 

 upon this point, we need only to apply this rule to ourselves in the purchase 

 of the various commodities for our own consumption. 



Southern Illinois ships berries mostly in twenty-four full-quart cases, while 

 we ship in the sixteen " snide"-quart cases. Last year many of our grape- 

 growers shipped their entire crop in what were called ten-pound baskets, 

 which, however, held only about eight pounds of fruit. This package, 

 freight and cartage on the same, cost as much as the twenty-pound package 

 used by other shippers, who got as much per pound for their fruit as those 

 using the small package. This is especially the case when fruit is plenty and 

 cheap; for these buyers look to quality and quantity when buying. 



It is evident that in this line a general reform is needed by the best 

 interests of all fruit growers. Increase the size of your package, reduce the 

 cost of transportation, and add to your profits. 



It is evident that peach culture is, and will be, rapidly on the increase on 

 this lake shore, from this time until climatic or other causes render the busi- 

 ness a general failure. That dread disease, yellows, is no longer so great a 

 tenor as it has been in the past. Our knowledge, from our experience with 

 this malady, may enable us in the future to combat it to a successful termi- 

 nation. Like the dreaded pear blight, it seems, when judiciously managed, 

 to be partially at least under human control. 



It is evident the various reforms indicate<i in this paper never can be ac- 

 complished by individual effort. Combination and organization are the 

 order of the day, and the sooner the rural population accept the inevitable 



