THE SUMMER MEETING. 41 



packages, and I'll be bound there is not one of what you term "snide pack- 

 ages" among them. How is this, any way? We made no particular order as 

 to style. Why did they not send us some of the ''shorts?" It seems strange 

 you should have difficulty here ; can't you people of St. Joseph and Benton 

 Harbor get full packages if you order them? I can not appreciate your great 

 difficulties. If you order nothing but straight sizes it seems to me there Avill 

 be no others used. 



Mr. Tate : There are Chicago commission men with us to-day, and I would 

 like right well to hear from them on this subject. 



Mr. Mason : As I am called upon I will very concisely state my views. I 

 believe in full, standard packages, and wish we had nothing else. Whenever I 

 have several sizes, and it is possible, I discriminate in favor of the straight 

 sizes. But this is not an easy thing to do; when the market is understocked, 

 everything goes off quickly and a little difference in size is not questioned. 

 When the market is full we have an opportunity to grade, and always do so. 

 But, gentlemen, suppose we have a number of consignments from various 

 parties, and they all stand side by side. We have an offer of so much per 

 basket for the lot. The price suits us and we take it. Of course our returns 

 on the short baskets are the same as upon the full-sized ones. We must make 

 them that way ; we cannot do otherwise. The moment you ask us to grade, 

 after we have made a sale, you are putting us on dangerous ground. The 

 temptations are too great for chicanery. No, we must stop short of that or 

 we would soon be in endless difficulties. My way would be to compel by law 

 the manufacturers to make certain sizes of definite capacity. 



Mr. Tucker : There is money in the pockets of the fruit growers to keep up 

 the standard of sizes. 1 have known consignments of apples from New York 

 to Chicago to be in an undersized barrel. It reacts on the consignor every 

 time. People like large barrels and will discriminate in their favor, and they 

 are getting to know standard from short packages. -» 



Secretary Garfield : Perhaps it is due the people here as well as myself that 

 I make a statement concerning the progress of legislation in the direction of 

 fruit packages the past winter at Lansing. A committee appointed by the 

 Berrien county society sent up a bill very carefully prepared which I intro- 

 duced, and it was referred to the committee on horticulture. That committee 

 gave the bill a considerable amount of study, and after mature deliberation 

 reported a substitute in the support of which they were unanimous. The bill 

 was printed and scattered through the State among fruit growers. We received 

 many letters concerning it; most of them were commendatory, but unfortu- 

 nately the communications from a majority of the committee which sent up 

 the original bill for introduction were of such a nature as to injure the chances 

 of the bill. It passed committee of the whole without opposition, but owing to 

 the lukewarmness of the very locality which had at first taken the aggressive 

 steps on its final passage it was defeated by a very small vote. Even then 

 if the people of this region had been earnestly in its favor we could without 

 doubt have reconsidered and carried the bill, but with no enthusiasm here 

 there was no attempt to resurrect it. I present you here a copy of the bill as 

 reported. It reads as fo^ows : 



A Bill to provide for marking the capacity on fruit packages. 



Section. 1. The People of the State of Michigan enact, That hereafter fruit growers 

 or fruit dealers who shall oiier for shipment or sale apples, pears, quinces, cranberries, 

 or other fruits in barrels or half barrels, shall use the standard size of Michigan: 



