122 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



and the seconds and poorer grades had been disposed of or even 

 thrown away at home, more would have been reaHzed for the 

 crop than the actual figures show. 



It is impossible in a paper of this kind to cover fully all points 

 connected with the foreign apple markets but have endeavored 

 to give the members a general idea of conditions attending the 

 exportation of apples. 



DISCUSSION. 



Whittier — Do buyers in that sales room have a chance for 

 close inspection of the apples? 



A. As I understand it they do. I judge partly from the way 

 the fruit is sold in Boston, that our auctions are carried on some- 

 thing as theirs ; the fruit is all landed on the wharf and the fruit 

 branded; you can very easily tell whether they are in a sound 

 condition or not, if they have begun to decay they will look wet. 

 They have catalogues and every buyer is furnished with a cata- 

 logue; these catalogues are left blank and the prices are not car- 

 ried out. These are printed on stiff paper. A man takes his 

 catalogue and goes to the wharf and every man has some way of 

 ranking the fruit ; some will use one hundred dollars and some 

 one hundred as the average grade of fruit. This is his estimate 

 of the fruit. 



I think the only opportunity for an inspection of the fruit is 

 in the sales room. He looks the fruit over and marks it ofif 

 according to its rank. He then goes to the sales room and there 

 he has a chance to inspect it; he opens his catalogue and if they 

 are selling No. i he simply takes his catalogue and refers to how 

 it looked on the wharf and then makes the foundation of his bid. 

 He bids on tight packages but you know when the demand is 

 good a man will take packages he wont when the market is 

 dull; then the catalogue will go back with more slacks; there are 

 no more slacks reported than there are but if a man makes up 

 his mind he can make a profit on the slack apples he don't say 

 anything about it. They bid on those apples in reference to 

 getting tight packages and they have the privilege of rejecting 

 the slack ones if they buy five hundred barrels, but he can't take 

 less than twenty and if the rest are all right he has got to take his 

 twenty barrels; it is for that reason that Mr. Otis speaks of the 

 farmers guaranteeing their stock; you have got to in some way 



