374 IJOARD of AGRictTLTtJRE. 



whole season, to supply the market. But the large body of us live too far 

 away from the markets, and we must gather our fruit and pack it and 

 ship it to distant markets. The majority of our money-making apples are 

 the long keeping ones. If that is the case we should decide what we are 

 going to do with them. It may be best to ship them immediately to 

 Europe or to some distant market in our own cotinti-y. If that is so, 

 gather them from the tree carefully, sort them into one, two or three 

 gi-ades, as the case ■ may be, always two grades, usually three. I have 

 assumed that every intelligent orchardist has sprayed his trees, and that 

 he is producing smooth, fair, handsome apples. Now, the question of 

 gi'ading comes in. They should be graded according to size, freedom from 

 worms and fungus diseases that cause blemishes. The great trouble has 

 been that the packer of apples packs the best he has and calls them No. 1. 

 There is no standard for apples among the average orchardist. The fiiiit 

 growers of the United States should establish a standard for apples. 

 You know there is never a commercial value on any manufactured 

 damaged goods, and that is why we so often receive such a small price 

 for our fruit. With our lack of skill in growing we have not produced 

 first-class fruit, and in our desire to get some returns for It we have 

 packed Avhat we had. Now, the manufacturer of silk, or hardware, or 

 anything else, after he has manufactured his goods, has them carefully 

 inspected and the least little flaw causes a piece to be rejected and it is 

 put in the second-class. Only the perfectly first-class goods are wrapped 

 up and the stamp of the factory put upon them, and then they are shipped 

 to every part of the world. If a buyer opens a package of this manufac- 

 turer's goods and finds, perchance, that there are some damaged goods in 

 the package, he does not write a saucy letter back to the manufacturer 

 and be laughed at for his pains and be told, "You have bought the goods; 

 now you must keep them." No, he lays them aside and deducts the price 

 from the bill, and the manufacturer apoligizes and tells him to sell them 

 for what he can get and apply the proceeds to his credit. If we sell our 

 goods as we have been doing, in the long run, the buyers will buy on the 

 basis of the damaged ones and make us throw in the good ones. 



Now, if we grow our apples properly and pick them as they mature, 

 and then grade and pack them properly, we will always have a market 

 for them. The package we pack them in should always be a new one. 

 Don't let your apples lie on the ground and "sweat out," as some people 

 say, and get a color. Let them get a color on the tree. Pack them each 

 day as fast as they are picked. Pack them absolutely the same from top 

 to bottom, every package, and pack as full as you can without bruising, 

 and then guarantee them by a good label or stamp on every package. 



There has been a good deal of misunderstanding about cold storage. 

 Some people had an idea that they could put a'ny kind of fruit in cold 

 storage and get good results. Some people put in cold storage apples that 

 they could not sell when there were other apples in the market, and then 



