896 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY IN NEW YORK STATE 



and a belief that these methods did not allow due consideration for 

 certain features essential to the successful marketing of fruit. 

 The requisites for successful marketing, Canadian growers be- 

 lieved, were : First, the securing of large quantities of fruit that 

 should be marketed under one brand ; secondly, the uniform pack- 

 ing and standardization of this fruit so that each package was as 

 nearly as practicable like every other package of the same grade, 

 and, thirdly, the securing and utilizing of a knowledge of market 

 requirements and conditions. 



The methods of orchard packing used in Canada previous to 

 the passage of their " Fruit Marks Act " were similar to those 

 commonly used at the present time in New York State, and an 

 analysis of them certainly shows that they did not permit of the 

 fulfillment of the market fundamentals just mentioned. 



By the first of these methods the grower picks and packs his 

 own crop in the orchard, a method that does not bring a large 

 quantity of fruit together for marketing under one brand, even 

 if the grower produced from five to ten thousand barrels of fruit. 

 At the present time, when organizations are putting on the market 

 from 50,000 to 450,000 barrels of fruit under one brand, it will 

 be seen that even 10,000 barrels make a comparatively small 

 impression on a market receiving approximately 2,000,000 barrels 

 of apples a year, as does the New York market. 



Neither does this first method fulfill the second requisite, that 

 of uniform packing, for aside from the variation that is certain to 

 result from barreling an orchard tree by tree, the grower is always 

 a biased judge of the quality of his own fruit, and the crop that 

 he has labored to produce always seems a little better to him than 

 his neighbor's, or one in which he has no personal interest. And 

 thus because they belong to him, he will often permit apples to go 

 into a better grade than that in which they would be placed if 

 he were grading his neighbor's fruit. 



During the operation of the Apple Packing Train, this point 

 was well illustrated by the testimony of a western New York 

 grower, who stated that he had shipped a car of " orchard packed " 

 apples to the New York market and followed it to New York in 

 order to supervise its selling. Describing his experience, he said : 

 " When I saw those apples in New York City, if my name had not 



