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a few years ago that we were to sell root crops by weight ; but I do not think that it is 

 done. I know we go into our market and ask for potatoes, and they are so much per 

 bag. The seller never talks about weight. I presume large cargoes are sold by weight. 

 Then if we were to weigh strawberries and raspberries I suppose we should be troubletl 

 by getting into ounces and fractions of ounces, perhaps. But if a fruit grower uses a 

 twelve-quart basket when he should use a sixteen-quarb basket, I hold he is doing wrong. 



Mr. Orr. — I would not be in favour of selling peaches by weight. If they were sold 

 in that way we should be looking for peaches with large pits. But I think we might 

 easily -arrange it to have a standard basket of fourteen or sixteen quarts, and have 

 baskets of three or four different sizes based on that — whole basket, half basket, and 

 quarter basket. By sending the fruit in large boxes a grower can sometimes make as 

 much out of them by shipping them in large lots as by shipping them in small, 



Mr. Drury. — I think the proper thing would be to have a law enacted to this 

 effect : That there should be so many cubic inches in what we call a basket of peaches, 

 and then that a basket of that size and, for convenience, baskets which were fractions of 

 it should be made standard measures. If that were done it would meet the whole case ; 

 while it would be no injvxstice to the grower, I believe it would be ample protection to 

 the buyer. 



Mr. WoLVERTON. — I think there should be a standard size of basket ; but the ques- 

 tion is what the size should be. We ship a great deal from about Grimsby, and the size 

 we generally use is the twelve-quart basket— not from any intention to deceive the buyer, 

 but because that is the most convenient size in which to ship soft fruit. One way, of 

 course, to avoid any difficulty is to state in shipping Avhat the basket contains. That is 

 what we do. 



Mr. Beadle. — I do not think there could be any exception taken to the use of 

 baskets of various sizes as long as it was understood between the buyer and seller whether 

 any basket being purchased was a twelve-quart, a four teen-quart, or a sixteen-quart 

 basket. But the difficulty comes in just here : I buy a basket of peaches, and it may 

 be twelve, fourteen, or sixteen quarts ; and the purchaser sometimes thinks he is getting 

 one when he is getting another. 



Mr. GoTT. — We get the reports of the New York markets almost every day, and 

 peaches are quoted at so much a basket, and we do not know how much that is. 



Mr. Dempsey. — I hope nobody will think there is any imputation intended against 

 any person who may vise the small basket ; this is simply a discussion. I was in 

 Montreal last year looking at the fruits in the market there ; and I found I was using a 

 berry basket the same that most of the others were using — one that held a little more 

 than three half pints. By rounding the berries very high you could put a quart in them. 

 You would see some lots of strawberries there in which the baskets of the top tier in the 

 case were heaped up, and the under ones very poorly filled. Those fruits were soon 

 found out, and they then went for from one to two cents less than the berries of the 

 honest shipper. Then I found that some did not fill the baskets of the top tier any 

 higher than those of the lower ones ; and there were some persons that shipped into that 

 market that got, during the whole season, about two cents a quart more than the quota- 

 tions. So that I am satisfied it pays the producer to use such a basket and fill it in such 

 a way that he can go into the market and conscientiously say "there is so much in it." 

 I have been in the market with my strawberries, however, when I knew the basket did 

 not contain a quart ; and when the people asked me " Is there a quart in if? " I would 

 tell them " Oh, no, not at all." Then another man standing a little way off would be 

 asked "Is there a quart in your basket"?" and he would say " Oh, yes;" and he would 

 sell his berries before I could sell mine simply because he would lie about what the 

 baskets contained. Strawberry packages should be twice the size of raspberry packages 

 in order to ship the fruit successfully. 



Mr. WoLVERTON. — I would like to ask our American friends if they have a standard 

 peach basket, and, if so, what the size of it is. 



Mr. Woodward. — The size of our basket is just exactly the size of a lump of chalk. 

 Every man goes as he pleases. We have thought over this, and had committees on it, 

 and had legislation ; and yet the thing remains just where it started. I find they are 



