INDIANA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 381 



Mr. Burton: How are you going to get them to come out even in the 

 boxes if you pack them by hand and do not shalie them? 



Mr. Hale: We have, in oiu- paclving sheds, m^n who can pack peaches 

 in about forty-five different ways in the same packages. The foreman 

 of the packing department knows just how it should be done. If the 

 peaches are nice and round and of a certain size he has a certain style 

 of pack for them. Then the Belle of Georgia is an oblong peach and the 

 style of pack is changed, but each one of these packs brings the box full 

 finally. That problem can be worked out by packers in either apples, 

 peaches or any other fruit. 



Mr. Burton: I wish to go back to the subject of picking apples a few 

 at a time. This is the first time that subject has been up in these meet- 

 ings. My experience has been similar to yours. I have noticed that my 

 Rome Beauties would have a number of ripe apples on early in the sea- 

 son, and a large number of smaller green ones. It was difficult to prevent 

 the pickers from picking the green ones and carrying them to the sorting 

 sheds. However, we finally did succeed in getting them to leave them on 

 the trees. Later these apples nearly doubled in size, were of a beautiful 

 color, and now they are the only sound Rome Beauties we have. 



Mrs. W. B. Flick: I should like to know why the horticulturists have 

 been saying so many things against the Ben Davis apples. I do not think 

 we should disparage our own goods. Other business men do not do this. 

 I think the Ben Davis is a good apple. Last year we had no other apples, 

 and I don't know what we should have done without the Ben Davis. 



Mr. Hale: It is because fruit growers are more honest than other 

 people; they will tell the truth in spite of their own financial interest. If 

 you have no other apples, and can get no others, gx'ow Ben Davis; but the 

 markets of the world want good apples, and somehow, somewhere, other 

 people will grow better apples than the Ben Davis, and those will be the 

 people who will make money. There are much better apples in the world, 

 and very much better apples can be grown in nearly all parts of the coun- 

 try than the Ben Davis, and with right methods and right conditions those 

 better apples will be offered. Whenever you offer a human being of aver- 

 age intelligence a Ben Davis apple you stick that in his crop and block 

 the way for ten good apples that ought to be going down into his stom- 

 ach. Whenever you offer an inferior fruit of any kind or variety you in- 

 terfere with the sale of a better product. The man who has Ben Davis 

 apples today and who will have them next year, will sell them, but he is 

 a dangerous impediment in the way of progress, and whei-e he is able to 

 sell ten barrels of Ben Davis apples he might sell twenty of a better grade. 



Mr. Flick: Did you ever eat any Indiana Ben Davis apples? 



