191 



caimot be controlled. I do not belong to it yet myself. 1 

 am .studying the thing and so, accordingly this year we sent 

 our berries in the trays you speak of, where the trays hold 

 twenty-one baskets, and we pile the berry boxes up proper- 

 ly. Our berries this year in Marshfield brought, the fir.st 

 I erries seventy cents a C(uart, sixty and seventy cents a 

 basket, and went down to thirty-five and twenty-five. But 

 when I used to be actively in the business, I was a pioneer 

 ]n the strawberry i)usiness in Marshfield thirty-five years 

 ago and had to sen'l them by train. Now all are going by 

 truck, and when we send about three or four hundred 

 thousand baskets in that way by those trucks and they get 

 here early in the morning, we get good prices. 



THE CHAIR.AIAN: I should think it would be a fine 

 thing to live in a neighborhood where the price of straw- 

 berries went down to twenty-five cents a box. In our sec- 

 tion the price goes up to twenty-five cents. (Laughter.) 



Are there any other questions on this paper? 



:\IR. GIL:\I0RE: r should like to ask Mr. Smith if he 

 can tell us anything about the cost of taking a small basket 

 from the orchard to the retail store or wherever he ships 

 them, either per mile or by the distance he has to go; if he 

 has figured that out, per basket, so that he could tell us 

 .something about the cost? 



MR. S:\1ITH: No, I cannot give it to you off hand. 



:\IR. AVILLIA^ilS: I would like to know whether Mr. 

 Smith considers the proposition of small package retail 

 v\'ork profitable in iruit when you have not a large enough 

 ((uantity to k'eep u]i the supply? 



THE CHAIR:\1AN: Mr. Williams raises the question 

 whether it is a proper line of marketing to attempt to de- 

 velop the small package when you have not a large enough 

 quantity of fruit to keep up the supply? 



MR. SMITH : y think that is a wonderfully good sug- 

 tTe.stion. Probably not ; that campaign would be more 

 adapted to a farm doing a long season or a mixed fruit 

 business. That is my feeling about it. 



