94 



getting late. I feel as if 1 was one afraid of that Apple 

 Grading Law because I am putting most of my apples in 

 open packages. We used to ship all our apples in barrels 

 to Boston and Springfield, but we had quite a few" Mcintosh 

 come on a few 3'ears ago. I do not like to put Mcintosh in- 

 to barrels so well, you know they are a very tender apple, 

 so we looked around to find some other package. 



I bought a couple of hundred boxes to try tne western 

 style of packing apples. I guess I have most of those boxes 

 'now, except a few I sold empty. We did not find them 

 satisfactory at all for several reasons. Finally I thought I 

 would try a cheap basket like that peach basket. I was ad- 

 vised to by a party who had followed that practice. So I 

 got some peach baskets, and of coarse, could not send them 

 open, by any conveyance that we had on hand so I got some 

 screen cloth, some red netting — first got pink netting — be- 

 cause the a]jples did not show as well as through red netting. 

 That is what you want. 



I put up a shipment of 25 l)askets of these and took 

 them to the station and sent them off. A day or two after 

 the station agent said they would not accept any more bas- 

 kets unless they had closed covers, wood covers. So I was 

 up against it then. I did not know just what to do, did not 

 liave any other way to send them, any auto truck running 

 out there, being about 18 miles from Springfield, so I talked 

 with the commission man in the city. 



He said, "I will send a truck out and get your apples 

 and give you the same price as if you sent them by freight." 

 I asked how many the truck loaded, and he said about a 

 couple of hundred to the load. That was in the fall of 1915. 

 and it was quite satisfactory, a good deal more so than 

 barrels at least, and more so than the western boxes, but it 

 is not perfect. 



When I came into the city liere I saw a lot of apples 

 just being unloaded and they put them on the floor and 

 then set others on the edges, tiering tliem up and a lot of 

 them got bruised. I noficpd they were liandling ([uite a 



