416 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



ginia, Maryland, Peunsylvaiiia and Delaware, taking in, of course, 

 any people from the District of Columbia. We did not feel that we 

 necessarily would be antagonistic to New York or to Geoigia and 

 states farther south, altliough matters might come up where there 

 would be a conflict of interest; but we felt that we could accomplish 

 more by limiting the membership to these slates. You will notice 

 by the constitution, that the Eastern Fruit Growers' Association is 

 open to membership to commercial fiuit growers or men and women 

 engaged in a scieutific research work relating thereto in the five states 

 mentioned. The membership fee is $1.00; lor societies, |5.U0. It 

 is to be hoped that Adams county will join as a society and a num- 

 ber of you as individuals. 



What shall the standard package law be? You people are backing 

 a proposed Lafean Bill standardizing a 28^ inch barrel stave. We 

 were lighting for just such a barrel. In Virginia the state law 

 makes standard a barrel one inch shorter with a 27| inch stave. 

 If any effective legislation on standard packages is to be passed 

 by Congress, the fruit growers who are vitally affected must go 

 before Congress united and demand the same standard. If you 

 people from Pennsylvania, and we from West Virginia and Mary- 

 land go down before the Agricultural Committee in favor of a 28^ 

 inch barrel, but the strong Virginia Society sends a big delegation 

 up there claiming that such a standard is unjust, and there should 

 be a 27^ inch barrel, it is very likely that the bill will never come 

 out of the Committee, which fact proves the necessity of an organi- 

 zation like the Eastern Fruit Growers' Association. The result of 

 the discussion was that a committee of five, one from each of the 

 five states, was appointed. This committee is expected to canvass 

 the sentiment of their various states. I hope we can persuade the 

 Virginia people that they are wrong. If we do persuade them then 

 the fruit growers will go before congress united in effecting legis- 

 lation along that line. 



I have here a table of rates* on which Hagerstown is taken as a 

 basis for this section. On the shipments going to points like New 

 Orleans or Jacksonville, the freight rates from all stations are just 

 the same as the Hagerstown rates. Now the jjoint is this: The price 

 of apples through this whole York Imperial belt depends largely 

 upon the lowest price in any one section. If the dealer can buy 

 York Imperial apples in Winchester or Martinsburg for |2.50 he 

 will not come here and buy yours at |2.75. This York Imperial 

 belt is well defined, and my experience is that the lowest market 

 price, packing and other things considered, governs the territory. 

 The rate from Rochester to Memphis is thirty-five cents per hun- 

 dred, and from Hagerstown to Meiuphis, thirty-five cents per hun- 

 dred. Your York Imperial may not go so exclusively to the south- 

 ern markets as ours do. A great many of your apples, nevertheless, 

 go south. A biryer comes in here with the idea of buying 20,000 

 barrels of apples. He finds, however, upon investigation that he 

 can buy 20,000 barrels of New York apples and get them into south- 

 ern markets as cheap as or cheaper than he can get ours in. Now 

 as a matter of justice, we believe we are entitled to a differential as 

 we are several hundred miles nearer to this market. At this meeting 

 in Washington on Wednesday, the members pledged a fund of |2,000.00 



