THE 



Canadian Horticuuurist 





11 



^^ 



SUCCESSFUL EXPORT SHIPMENTS OF TENDER FRUITS. 



UR frontispiece will be an interesting 

 one to Canadian fruit g-rowers, 

 showing, as it does the Manchester 



>^c sale room for fruit. Here are col- 

 lected merchant buyers from various parts, 

 eager to purchase supplies for their special 

 trade. Our goods are separated into lots 

 according to grades and shipper's marks, 

 and samples of each brought into the sale 

 room and opened. If a brand is known as 

 reliable, nothing further is necessary, but if 

 unknown, or known with suspicion, the 

 packages are emptied out on the table for 

 inspection, and if found fraudulent, the 

 whole lot is sold as such. The fact that so 

 much of our barrel fruit has been found un- 

 reliable has had a most disastrous effect 

 upon its selling price in Great Britain, and 

 it is only by establishing our trade on a new 

 basis with reliable grades, that we can ex- 

 pect to gain that popularity which our goods 

 so well deserve. 



This object has been before the Ontario 

 Fruit Growers' Association for some years 

 past, and the writer, being secretary of this 

 Association and of the fruit experiment 



stations of Ontario, has been asked to act 

 in this particular for the extension of our 

 fruit markets. On referring the matter to 

 the Minister of Agriculture for Ontario, he 

 expressed his willingness to aid us in every 

 way possible. The export of peaches, pears 

 and grapes being more vital to Ontario than 

 to any other province, it was natural that 

 our province should now exert herself in her 

 own interests and carry to a successful 

 issue the work so well begun in an experi- 

 mental way by the Dominion. 



Last year the writer was commissioned 

 by the Hon. John Dryden to forward a few 

 hundred cases of Ontario grown grapes to 

 Manchester, to test the English market for 

 our best varieties. The varieties selected 

 were the Red Rodgers. They were packed 

 5 lb. veneer baskets, four in a case. As 

 reported in our Fruit Experiment Station 

 report, they were received in Manchester 

 with great suspicion, and at first no one 

 would purchase them at any price, but by 

 and by the costers bought them gingerly 

 and began selling them on the streets. 

 Then they came and paid double the price 



