APPLE PACKAGES 140 



The Chairman: The matter is open for discussion. 



Mr. C. G. Marshall: I will say that I have had some experience in 

 packing both in barrels and boxes. A year or two ago I thought that the 

 box would probably be the only package, in a few years used in this coun- 

 try, but I am changing my mind. I believe there is a place for both pack- 

 ages just as Mr. Green has said, but the box package we find has been 

 rather expensive. Of course after we get our men trained in packing so 

 that they can put up more packages in a day we can lessen this cost. We 

 have found it has cost us 10 to 12 cents a box for the packing of these 

 boxes, and then an expense of 2 or 3 cents for paper, and we have had to 

 use the very best apples for the boxes, and in the long run I believe we 

 were ahead from the apples we packed in barrels. Now that box pack- 

 age would be desirable to pack our best fruit in; some of the fancy 

 varieties, that can be disposed of to the best trade in the city, but in the 

 case of the ordinary Ben Davis and some of those apples that are used 

 mostly in the culinary department, I doubt if it will ever pay to put it 

 up in that way. It demands a price too large to expect the ordinary con- 

 sumer to pay for. 



The Chairman: Is there anything else? 



A Member: My observation has been that the people here have 

 thought altogether too much of the box. It has been accepted as a cure- 

 all for low prices, and with the increased use of the box as an apple pack- 

 age we are beginning to find that the northwestern people are right when 

 they pack only their very best fruit in the box. Now we all hear a very 

 great deal of Hood River. What do the people there pack in their boxes? 

 Nothing but the very best. And then they are extremely careful to have 

 every apple in the box just the same as every other apple. I was down 

 in Arkansas and saw a man whom I heard was the most progressive grower 

 engaged in the box packing of apples in Arkansas, and I called to get an 

 idea of what he was doing; he wanted to get the cream of the prices. A 

 lot of the apples he was putting in his boxes were spotted and bad, and 

 scale marked and a large part of them were being turned down, and yet 

 he was going on the assumption that putting those apples in the boxes 

 would bring him a big price. Now as a matter of fact 50 per cent of 

 those apples that he was packing in boxes should have gone in barrels. 

 Why? Because it costs more to pack apples in boxes than barrels. It will 

 cost 20 cents more to pack three bushels in boxes than in barrels. And 

 on account of the increased cost of the box as a package, nothing but the 

 very best sample, the cream of the fruit, should go in boxes to make the 

 box package pay. It is the cheaper grade of apples that should go in 

 barrels, and when it comes to the stuff we are hesitating about, I am of 

 the opinion it should go to the evaporators, the vinegar factory, and so 

 forth, and not go on the market at all. The evaporators are gaining 

 in popularity as an outlet for low grade stuff. In Missouri, New York, 

 Oregon and California the evaporators are taking the poorer grade apples 

 and are using them and converting them into a by product, and thus it 

 takes the low grade stuff off the market and increases the price of the 

 market apples. The northwestern apples in Washington, Oregon, and so 



