NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



of Canadian apples. It is a wooden 

 box lo X iS X 12 inches, with four sets 

 of card board divisions, so arranged 

 that the whole case will hold twelve 

 dozen apples. The same principle has 

 previously been used by Mr. R. W. 

 Shepherd, of Montreal, in the Cochrane 

 case, which he has used in shipping 

 tender summer apples to Great Britain. 

 We gave cuts of the Cochrane case on 

 p. 115, Canadian Horticulturist for 

 1893. Such a package will insure uni- 

 formity of size, but the same object is 

 secured by use of an apple grader, and 

 the ordinarj bushel box, 12 x 12 x 24, 

 can then be used with results, in our 

 opinion, quite as good. 



Pears in London. — So early as July 

 27th, French pears were coming into 

 the London market, and Williams (our 

 Bartlett) were making 6s. to 7s. per box 

 of 48, and the California Williams 6s. 

 6d. to 7s. 6d. per half case, and the 

 Souvenier du Congres from 6s. 6d. to 

 7s. 6d. 



The Alice Grape is a new red var- 

 iety, originated about ten years ago 

 and now being placed on the market. 

 The quality is excellent, and the season 

 a little in advance of Concord. It is a 

 good shipper and long keeper. 



The Carriage of our Apples in 

 transit to Great Britain, in the past, 

 has certainly been extremely faulty, and 

 has resulted in thousands of dollars loss 

 to our Province. The agitation for 

 honest packing and careful selecting and 

 grading is a vain effort, unless the 

 steamers are better fitted up so as to 

 carry our apples in ventilated chambers 

 instead of locking them in the oven like 

 holds in which they have been stowed 

 in the past. Mr. Robertson in his evi- 

 dence on the " Apple Trade," given i6th 

 of May, 1 899, says : 



" Taking the shipments on Canadian 

 Apples last fall which are Ontario main- 

 ly, a few perhaps from Quebec, sold in 

 Liverpool by two different sets of sales- 

 men ; taking a quantity of 14,416 barrels 

 going by 17 different steamships and 

 sent forward, as near as I can make out 

 from the brands, in abont 185 different 

 lots, the brand is sometimes so much 

 like another brand that it may have been 

 the same — but that is a very wide range 

 you see of data from which to make a 

 calculation. There were nearly 15,000 

 barrels on 17 steamships sent forward 

 in 185 different lots. The account sales 

 show this that out of the total quantity 

 there were only 5,928 barrels sold as 

 tights. There were 2,793 slacks, 

 2,446, slightly wet, 1,997 wet, and 

 1,252 wet and slack. That is to say 

 rather more than one half of the apples 

 shipped in these lots were sold as slack, 

 slightly wet and wet. Tke difference in 

 price realized by these apples is very 

 great. The only way to get any fair 

 information on this is to take a lot of ap- 

 ples sent by one ship and pick out the 

 apples of the same class sold as tight, 

 and the others of that variety sold as 

 slacks or wet. Going over the list and 

 taking out the apples of the same variety 

 under these conditions the slacks on the 

 average sold for two shillings and seven 

 pence less than the tights. The slightly 

 wets, for three shilhngs and eight pence 

 less than the tights, the wets for seven 

 shillings and three pence less than the 

 tights, and the wet and slacks for nine 

 shillings and eleven pence less or nearly 

 ten shillings and of these wel and slacks 

 there were 1,252 barrels." 



\\'e are promised by the Department 

 at Ottawa, that a special inspector will 

 be provided at the great shipping ports 

 to see after the proper storage of oui 

 apples and shipboard, and we can there- 



411 



