74 



ing law. Here was a new statute — without precedent back 

 of it. There are 37,000 farmers in Massachusetts and 27,000 

 of them report bearing apple trees. Of these probably not 

 less than eight or ten thousand have some apples to sell. • 



Now evidently the first thing was to "get this law 

 across," not only to the farmers but to the Commission mer- 

 chants, the buyers, packers, dealers, in fact the whole ap- 

 ple trade. 



This was a big job and while considerable educational 

 work was done on this law in ]915, there was a lot left to be 

 •done this year. 



Part of this was done by demonstrations of the law at 

 fairs, at Grange and Farmers' Club meetings and in this 

 work the farm bureaus and coimty leagues and the county 

 schools were of great assistance. 



A lot of personal work was also done by our inspectors 

 and the inspectors in the county have been at the beck and 

 call of all who wished to call on them for assistance and ad- 

 vice. 



The principal part of the work in enforcing the law, 

 however, has been the actual inspection work. That has 

 been done in this way. We have covered the Boston mar- 

 ket almost every day since the 18th of September and the 

 Springfield and Worcester markets about once a week. 



At Boston we have also tried to keep in touch with the 

 exftort trade and see the apples on th.:- docks. Our inspectors 

 are jn^ovided Avith blanks on which to make reports — these 

 blanks show the owner, packer, numl)er of packages and 

 other necessary facts and whether the lot was correctly or 

 iin'orrectly marked. 



Now our work this year has been first of all to get 

 growers to mark their barrels at all — in the first of the sea- 

 son the principal fault was that many of the shipments were 

 not marked at all for any ^rade, and in such a case it was., 

 of course not necessary to look at the fruit — for it was ob- 

 vious that the packer had violated the law. Now when we 

 find that l)arrels are marked correetlv as to form, then of 



