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September, 1910 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



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now niakinK sincere efforts to comply with 

 its provision. 



The horticultural organizations in our 

 different Canadian cities, particularly in 

 Ontario where they are well organzed and 

 strong, might well grapple with this ques- 

 tion as similar organizations have in the 

 United States. They will find much help- 

 ful information in a bulletin issued by the 

 American Civic Association in March, 1908. 



The death of the late H. S. Peart has 

 imposed upon the provincial government the 

 necessity of appointing at an early date a 

 director of the experimental station at Jor- 

 dan Harbor. It is essential that this 

 .station shall become one of the foremost ex- 

 |)eriment stations on the continent. This 

 means that the director must be a man of 

 the highest possible qualifications. The 

 provincial government must be prepared to 

 spend a larger sum than it has hitherto 

 for the .services of the director. The salary 

 allowed should be at least $2,000 and a free 

 house. Nothing less will be likely to at- 

 tract a man competent to fill the position 

 with credit to the section and to the pro- 

 vince. 



Dairy Commissioner Ruddick, who is at 

 the head of the Fruit Division of the Do- 

 minion government, is to be commended 

 upon the efforts ho is making to develop 

 the trade in tender fruits between Canada 

 and Great Britain. The sums that will be 

 involved in the firosecuton of experiments 

 of this nature are trifling compared with 

 the results we may reasonably expect will 

 be obtained. The experiments, therefore, 

 should be made as complete and thorough as 

 possible. 



Friendly Criticism 



Friends cf The C.vnadi.vn Horticulturist 

 occasionally suggest that it would be a great 

 improvement if w© would print The Can- 

 adian Horticulturist on high grade coated 

 paper, if wo would u.se more and larger il- 

 lustrations and if wo would enlarge the dif- 

 ferent departments of the paper. In this 

 connection they point out that The Can- 

 adian Horticulturist is smaller than seme 

 of the leading United States and British 

 horticultural publications. 



We would remind our readers that Can- 

 ada is but a young country sparsely settled. 

 The Canadian Horticulturist is devoted 

 largely "to the fruit interests of the Domin- 

 ion. The principal fruit districts in Can- 

 ada are located in Nova Scotia, the counties 

 adjoining the lakes in Ontario and in Brit- 

 ish Columbia. They could not well be more 

 widely scattered. This makes it expensive 

 to increase our circulation and often diffi- 

 cult to hold it. 



Our country being small the number of 

 advertisers is limited. These conditions 

 make it impossible for us to publish as 

 large or as high class a paper as can be 

 issued in the United States where there 

 are over 80,000, TOO peojjle. Wo feel, how- 

 ever, that we can safely .say that The Can- 

 adian Horticultt-rist is a better publica- 

 tion, considering its o))portunities and pos- 

 sibilities, than most, if not all of the but few 

 publications with which it is sometimes com- 

 pared unfavorably. Canada is growing raji- 

 idly and if our readers will but stand by 

 MS loyally The Canadian Horticulturist 

 within a few years will more than hold its 

 own with any similar publication in the 

 world. 



The Box Apple Package—Its Uses and Limita- 

 tions in the East* 



Dr. S. W. Fletcher, Director of Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station 



THE barrel has been the standard and 

 almost the only package for winter 

 apples for over half a century. It 

 has several distinct advantages. Owing to 

 its rounded sides, it can be packed easily 

 and rapidly, even by the unskilled ; and, 

 for the same reason, it can be handled more 

 easily by rolling than any other package 

 of equal bulk. Until within ten years it has 

 also been a cheap package. Now, barrels 

 cost most fruit growers from thirty to forty 

 cents instead of fifteen to thirty cents as 

 formerly. The apple barrel is an eastern 

 package, and is made of hardwood, usually 

 of elm and oak, which are more common in 

 the east than in the west. 



history of the box package 



The apple box, on the other hand, is a 

 western package. Open bushel boxes have 

 long been used in the east for shipping 

 vegetables and early apples. The closed 

 box has also been used somewhat, by a few 

 individuals, notably by Mr. L. Woolverton, 

 of (Jrimsby, Out., who was exporting wrap- 

 ped apples in bushel boxes, 128 apples to 

 the box, fifteen years ago. 



But the real introduction of the apple 

 box as a commercial package for winter 

 apples is coincident with the rise of com- 

 mercial anple growing in the Pacific coast 

 states, within the past fifteen years. The 

 prototype cf the apple box is the orange 

 box. The Pacific coast apple growers face 

 conditions that have made the box, rather 

 than the barrel, their almost exclusive ap- 

 ple package. The most important condi- 

 tion is their great distance from markets, 

 and consequent high transportation charges. 

 It costs 50 cents to raise a bushel of Hood 

 River apples, and 50 cents more to lay it 

 down in New York. This makes it impera- 

 tive to economize space and the box packs 

 tighter in a car than the barrel, especially 

 the old fashioned barrel with a three or four 

 inch bilge. 



But the most important effect of the great 

 distances and high rates has been on the 

 grading of the fruit. rhere would be no 

 profit in paying such high transportation 

 charges on inferior fruit. Only fruit that 

 will sell at the top of the market will justify 

 the outlay. This means carefully graded 

 fruit, fully as much as high quality fruit. 

 The box package enforces careful grading. 

 The shiftless 'shuffle pack," is still used in 

 some parts of the we.st, but in most cases 

 apiiles packed in boxes are placed tier upon 

 tier. This is expensive, but the cost of 

 grading is small compared with the cost of 

 getting the fruit to market, and the re- 

 turns usually justify the outlay. The points 

 to be noted are that great distance from 

 markets and high transportation charges 

 have forced the western fruit grower to 

 grade more carefully than his eastern com- 

 petitor ; and that the bushel box, in which 

 uniformity is imperative, has thus become 

 the distinctve western package. 



Another condition that has had some in- 

 fluence is the fact that the soft woods pro- 

 dominate in the west, and the hardwoods in 

 the oast. The barrel is a hardwood package; 

 the box is a softwood package . Some bo.xes 

 are now being made in the east from poplar 

 and yellow pine, but they are decidoclly in- 

 ferior to the fir, spruce, and white' i)ine 

 boxes of the west; not only because they 

 are heavier and more rigid, but also be- 

 cause they come in narrower widths. The 

 buj-ho' apple box is the most logical and 



•Extract from an address delivered at the meet- 

 ing of the American Pomological Society la«t 

 September. 



fitting package that the west could develop 

 out of the material at hand. In view cf 

 the rapirt reduction of our natural forests, 

 we must soon expect to face the necessity 

 of forest tree culture. The soft woods, be- 

 ing more rapid in growth, will become more 

 common and cheaper than the hardwoods, 

 hence the barrel will tend to become more 

 and more costly, as compared with the box. 

 high prices por western fruit 

 Eastern apple growers have been more or 

 less nettled, and their ambition stimulated, 

 by the high prices received for western box 

 fruit iu recent years. It is rather galling 

 to eastern men to see a bushel box of Wash- 

 ington or British Columbia apples selling 

 for the same price as his own three-bu,shel 

 barrel. It relieves him somewhat to dilate 

 upon the superior "quality" and "flavor" 

 of his own fruit. 



GRADING AND PACKING 



The fundamental difference between the 

 two types of packages is here. The box 

 encourages and almost enforces, honest and 

 uniform grading, while the barrel permits 

 carelessness in this respect. The cost of 

 packing is also an item. Where a very 

 1- ge quantity of fruit is packed by speci- 

 ally trained men, it costs little if any more 

 for labor to pack in boxes than in barrels. 

 Mut the small grower, and especially one 

 who has been accustomed to the barrel pack, 

 will find that it costs from one third to one 

 half more to pack in boxes than in barrels. 



Small, or otherwise inferior fruit seldom 

 if ever yields as high returns in the box 

 pack as in the barrel pack. Only the large 

 sizes go well in boxes. It is a question for 

 each grower to decide whether he can get 

 more by sorting out his fancy and No. 1 

 stock for boxing and selling the smaller fruit 

 in barrels, than to sell all in barrels as 

 No. I's. 



Another point to be considered is the 

 shane of the fruit. It is almost imperative 

 that box fruit should be quite regular in 

 shape. Ijop-sided and mis-shapen fruit, like 

 the York, es])ecially from young trees, would 

 not pack well in boxes. 



No one has ever succeeded with the box 

 pack using common stock. Only fancy and 

 No. 1 fruit of the best quality has paid in 

 boxes. Hv intensive methods and especiall.v 

 hv thinning the young fruit on the trees, 

 many of the best western growers have been 

 able to produce fruit ninety-five per cent, of 

 which is fancy. Practicall,y all of the Hood 

 River fruit is box fruit. I doubt if, on 

 nn averaco thirt.y per cent, of the apple 

 crop of Ontario, or any other part of the 

 west, is box or fancy fruit. This point 

 must be kept emphaticall.v in mind when 

 the suggestion is made that the box should 

 become the exclusive apple pack'age of the 

 east, as it is now in the west. , 



quality op fruit 

 Of far le.ss importance than the grade of 

 the fruit in the package, in resnect to the 

 question before us, is its quality. It is 

 a fact, however, that the box fruit that has 

 comanded the highest prices is mostly of 

 varieties of high quality. Winesap, Spitzen- 

 burg, Newtown. But other varieties, even 

 some cf very indifferent qualit.y, have been 

 sold in the box package to great advantage, 

 showing that the st.yle of package and the 

 grade of fruit, rather than its flavor, are 

 the deciding factors. However, the general 

 experience has been that the bettor the 

 quality of the friiit, the more apt it is to 

 pay in the box pack. If varieties of in- 

 ferior quality pay in the box pack, it is be- 



