148 NKBKASKA STATE HORTICTLTURAL SOCIETY 



Commercial club will do their part of the business. I am only one of 

 a great many people there, and I want them to do the right thing, and if 

 they will not do their share don't you put your show on there. 



The Chairman: If there are no further remarks, we will pass to the 

 next number. I notice we are booked for a discussion on "Apple Pack- 

 ages" a matter which is very practical and of very great interest to this 

 society. This is to be led by Professor Laurenz Green, of Ames, Iowa 



APPLE PACKAGES— DISCUSSION. 



Professor Laurenz Green, Ames, Iowa. 



Mr. Chairman, Members of the Horticultural Society: We have been 

 discussing apple packages quite a good deal over at the apple display, in- 

 stead of trying to learn to pack apples in boxes. What seems to be the 

 liiain question is will it pay to pack in boxes, and v.hat advantages have 

 they over the barrel? There are other methods of packing besides the 

 barrel and the box. We found this winter that a small paper carton put 

 out by some of the paper companies paid us well for the trouble of buy- 

 ing it. It costs us between one and a half and two and a half cents apiece 

 and holds a dozen apples. We found these sold well enough to repay us 

 for the trouble of packing the apples. Another man who packs them this 

 way started out using the parcels post delivery. Another man used 

 baskets to pack his apples in. Now perhaps this discussion will end in 

 the box and barrel. Anything less than the barrel should contain the best 

 apples, because every time you decrea.se the size of the package you in- 

 crease the cost of packing and marketing, you can not get away from that. 

 They may talk about the box being cheaper than the barrel, but I don't 

 believe that the man, lives who can make it cheaper. When you increase 

 the price of the apple on the market we are bound to decrease the de- 

 mand for that product. And therefore we are going to cut off the con- 

 sumption by the demand for the box, but there is a certain class of people 

 who are bound to pay for quality, and they do not want these apples in 

 barrels where they can not see and do not know what they are getting. 

 But the box has its place. lu fact I favor the box a great deal, but the 

 principle is true that every lime you increase the cost of the apple, you 

 are decreasing the demand, and decreasing the consumption. But there 

 is another side to that, and that is that in the city you can reach the 

 small consumer who can not use a barrel of apples. The residents in 

 most of the small towns, and the farmers buy the barrel, or two or three 

 barrels, of apples, but in the city in the flats, they have no place to keep 

 a barrel and they buy smaller quantities and thus by the box you reach 

 the small consumer. I was interested this fall to note in the newspapers 

 quite a discussion among some of the western growers of the northwestern 

 country, in regard to the apple barrel, and a great many of them are 

 using the apple barrel to market their apples. I do not believe I have 

 anything more to offer on this question. T wish the discussion would be 

 free and open. 



