Vermont State Horticultural Society. 56 



has come under my notice is run on the following plan: 

 There is a central packing house at the railroad station to 

 which the farmers bring their apples. There is a manager and 

 an expert packer there, and as soon as the apples are brought in 

 they are inspected, graded and packed by the packer, and the 

 farmer is credited with, so many No. i and No. 2 and No. 3, of 

 the varieties he brings in. The No. I's from all the farmers are 

 placed in one pile, and the buyer comes and offers a price ; when 

 a sale is made every farmer gets his proportion. That is found 

 to work very satisfactorily. 



To overcome bruising, on the ajpples coming from the 

 country, a little hay is put in the bottom of an ordinary hay 

 wagon; the hay gives some spring to the barrel, and it is found 

 that the apples arrive in perfect condition. 



There is no difficulty in regard to the grading of the fruit, 

 although it would appear there might be. Only a certain sized 

 apple, a certain percentage of poor fruit can go in the best grades 

 and the No. I's, No. 2's and No. 3's are separated without 

 difficulty. 



Since these co-operative associations have been started buy- 

 ers have come to these districts who would never come there 

 before ; they knew it would not pay them ; they are now glad to 

 come where they can find large quantities of fruit put up well. 



I am sure if you adopt a co-operative system here in Ver- 

 mont you will find it practical and satisfactory. 



In Canada we have to ship the most of our apples which we 

 have for export to Great Britain, there is such a duty coming 

 into the United States it is not possible to ship them here with 

 much profit. Our market in Manitoba is opening up, but the 

 principal point js Great Britain. We find in shipping there it 

 is necessary to have a uniform package, the same as we do with 

 our butter and cheese, for if we have uniform packages we 

 expect to receive better prices for our produce. There is a legal 

 barrel in Canada, but when boxes began to be used more it was 

 necessary to get our fruit growers' association to adopt a standard 

 size of box. Unless we could get the fruit growers interested 

 in this matter and get them to adopt a uniform box it was not 

 possible to get the Legislature to do anything. The principal 

 fruit growers' association in the Dominion of Canada have 

 adopted the size of a box spoken of by Mr. Kinney, 10 x 11 x 20 

 inches inside measurement. The reason this size was adopted 

 was because in British Columbia and in Oregon, and I think in 

 some parts of California,, they have adopted this size box, and 

 as a great many of these go to Great Britain and Europe, we 

 thought it better to adopt a size exactly like that they were 

 sending. There is a bill in Parliament at this session which 



