STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. II9 



account would of course show a loss, but as a speculator he fol- 

 lows the market and soon has an opportunity to recover his 

 losses and comes out with a balance on the right side. 



The foreign outlet for our apples is confined almost wholly to 

 the markets of Great Britain. The most important market is 

 Liverpool, then comes London, Glasgow, Hull and lately to a 

 very small degree Manchester and Bristol. 



As Liverpool is the most important I will give that market 

 my particular attention. It is important on account of the 

 superior transportation facilities which it has in the way of many 

 lines of large and fast steamers from New York, Boston and 

 ]\Iontreal, and in the winter season from Portland; also because 

 it is a large distributing centre to the large markets of Man- 

 chester, Birmingham, Leeds and other cities throughout Eng- 

 land. Immediately upon being landed in Liverpool, apples are 

 sorted according to marks upon the dock and dififerent selec- 

 tions made according to the tightness of the packing; the differ- 

 ent terms being "tights," "slack," "slightly wet," and "wet," the 

 term "wet" indicating that the barrels show wet upon the sides 

 or ends from the juice of the fruit and not wet with salt water (as 

 some people suppose); "wet" or "slightly wet" shows to the 

 buyer that the fruit is to a greater or less extent decayed. After 

 selections are made, samples of each and every mark (usually 

 about four barrels out of a lOO barrel lot) are sent to the sales 

 room. In this one room all the brokers, or as we would call 

 them, auctioneers, take turns selling their apples. Here all the 

 apples as well as other green fruits importd into Liverpool are 

 sold at auction. 



The sales room is arranged something after the plan of a 

 theatre, the auctioneer and their clerks on one side, while the 

 buyers occupy seats arranged in circular rows on the other, and 

 in the centre, that is between the seller and the buyers, is the 

 elevator up on which samples come up from a room below. 

 These samples are opened, part on the faced end and part on the 

 pressed end and then emptied into large baskets, thus showing 

 fully the contents of the barrels. 



The sales take place every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 

 and are attended by buyers representing dealers from all over 

 England and when conditions are favorable from some places on 



