(3) Gr\ding and Packing. The car from St. Catharines was filled 

 with apples, pears, peaches, plums, and grapes, the fruit being furnished 

 by eighteen of the growers of that locality. Dommion Fruit Inspector 

 Carey and I examined carefully a number of cases of each class of fruit 

 put up by each shipper. A large number of the growers were present^ 

 and the one fault which was evident to all was the great lack of uniformity 

 in grading, packing and branding. Evidently no two shippers setemed 

 to have the same idea as to what constituted No- 1 or No. 2 grade of fruit. 

 Some of the growers sent in first-class fruit packed in first-class style, 

 but others sent in ungraded fruit, improperly packed and wrongly branded. 

 From my personal acquaintance with many of the shippers concerned, I 

 feel certain that none of them would intentionally do wrong in this matter; 

 yet the fact remains that in a trial shipment made with the object of open- 



Fig, o. First-class peaches and pears, carefully graded and neatly packed. 



ing up a new market, fruit was being sent which, because of the grading 

 and packing, could not but bring discredit upon the shipper whose name 

 appeared on every case, and could not but tend to close the market against 

 even those who were doing all right, but happened to be in bad company. 

 To avoid as much as possible such a result, we found it necessary in som^ 

 cases to rebrand the fruit to a lower grade. 



It so happened that there was present at the' time of the shipment 

 Mr. Carson, a Canadian, who was a few years ago engaged in fruit grow- 

 ing in the Georgian Bay district. He was an interested spectator, be- 

 cause he is now engaged in shipping California fruit to the Northwest 

 market. He told us frankly that he had no fear of competition from On- 

 tario so long as our fruit was sent in such condition, and, for the benefit 



