STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 47 



it Stimulates us to do better all the time and it broadens the con- 

 sumption — then, further than that, grade your fruit, for it pays. 

 It is more difficult to grade small fruits, for if you are going to 

 grade at all it must be at the time of picking. To take them to 

 the sorting house and attempt to do this is an injurious process 

 to the small fruit. If the small fruits are to be graded, and if 

 }'ou are working for an extremely fancy market it will pay to 

 grade your fruit, some varieties, — it must be done in the pick- 

 ing—you must pick extras into one package, number ones into 

 another, and so on — and it will require paying an extra price to 

 your pickers. You cannot get money unless you spend it. The 

 more you scatter, the more things come back to you. The more 

 you put into a thing the more you get out. 



Now this fruit must be graded carefully, and to do it — in fish- 

 ing for a very fancy market — you have got to pay a higher price 

 than the average for the picking. You want your packages the 

 newest, the cleanest you can get. We used to talk about venti- 

 lated packages, for our small fruits, especially. Years ago when 

 I first began to grow strawberries and carry them to market — 

 grew them on a little quarter acre patch — we put them in the little 

 round boxes, perfectly tight, solid box, and put the cover on, — 

 then put them in an old trunk and gave them to the stage driver 

 and he took them to market, and the biggest dollars I ever saw 

 in the world were what that old stage driver brought back from 

 that little lot of strawberries. Then came the ventilated basket, 

 and the ventilated basket and crate was talked about as a revolu- 

 tion in small fruit handling, — it gave them light and air and 

 everything else. And we have drifted so far away that we have 

 got into that ventilated package and we are ruining our fruit with 

 too loose packages, too much air. I go to the grounds and they 

 take me on top of the hill. Right on too of the hill they have got 

 a little tent erected of boards or something else and it keeps the 

 sun off and the air blows through there. They bring their fruit 

 in here and spread it out for the wind to cool it oflf. But the air 

 going through there all the time is ruining it. The quicker you 

 can get fruit cool from the vine into a tight package the better. 

 Your grocer down here buys some strawberries to-day. He does 

 not sell them and to-morrow they look a little wilted on top and 

 especially alongside of the fresh ones. He holds them until 

 to-morrow afternoon, they have wilted down and look pretty bad 



