80 THE STRAWBERRY IN NORTH AMERICA 



scooped into quart measures and the empty stands were 

 returned to the shipper. 



The Cincinnati stand was a fairly satisfactory package 

 for berries shipped to near markets; it was cheap and 

 easily handled, but there were too many berries in one 

 package to make it serviceable for distant shipment. 

 The fruit reached the market soft and settled ; a shrinkage 

 of 10 to 30 per cent was not uncommon. This led to the 

 substitution of boxes in crates for distant shipments; 

 for near markets, stands were used more or less until 

 about 1900. In 1895 the stand of four one-half-bushel 

 drawers was still in common use in Ohio. It cost forty 

 cents new, but good second hand stands could be bought 

 for fifteen to twenty cents. 



The retail dealer preferred trays or drawers to boxes, 

 because they "held out better." Usually the grower 

 did not measure the berries into the drawer, but picked 

 them in large baskets and poured them into the drawer 

 until it was level full. Frequently the retailers were 

 able to sell eighteen to twenty quarts from each half 

 bushel drawer ; they claimed that the buyer liked to see 

 the berries measured out. According to W. W. Farms- 

 worth of Ohio, "They buy by dry measure and sell by 

 wine measure, and make a dollar a bushel by that oper- 

 ation. Many markets, however, prefer the Cincinnati 

 stand as it gives the grocer a chance to do his own meas- 

 uring and sell his thumb thirty-two times to the bushel 

 at ten cents a quart and still have it left." ^ We are no 

 longer privileged to observe this sleight-of-hand feat with 

 strawberries, but modern substitutes are equally inter- 

 esting. About 1885 many growers who used stands sold 

 them with the berries, agreeing to buy them back again 

 1 Rept. Ohio Hort. Soc, 1886-7, p. 55. 



