STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 7 



Many growers have had apples in the past and many have 

 them now, that they would be glad to send to Boston but for 

 the fact that there are no heater cars available for less than 

 car-load lots, so that a man who has twenty barrels of North- 

 ern Spy that are worth more in Boston than in Liverpool, 

 cannot send them to either place during the cold weather. The 

 result is that he must either sell to the local buyer or make 

 some deal with the shipper who may or may not be taking in 

 fruit at the time he is ready to sell. Perhaps if we should 

 ask it the railroads would send a heater once or twice a week 

 over the different lines to enable small growers to ship their 

 own fruit if they wished to do so. 



I met a gentleman the other day who is receiving fruit in 

 small lots, to be sent in car lots to Boston. He has made 

 arrangements with reliable parties to receive the same and 

 send it forward or cause it to be delivered to any one in the 

 city. For doing this work he receives five cents per barrel, 

 but his patrons have the benefit of the car rate, which for mv 

 county makes a saving of (i8 less 5) about 13 cents on a barrel. 

 It is a new plan in my part of the State, but it seems worthy of 

 trial elsewhere. 



Not long since an "apple trust" went into effect in England, 

 under which an association of fruit auctioneers was formed 

 to bar all buyers from the auction room who do not join the 

 trust. The first sale of apples made after it went into effect 

 caused a "slump" of several shillings in the price. The effort 

 of the trust seems to be to limit competition in the auction 

 rooms. To what extent this situation may affect the price of 

 our fruit this year, one cannot tell, but to me it seems to place 

 the advantage in the buyers' hands. There are English auc- 

 tioneers who are not in the trust, and so the grower may 

 exercise some choice in the matter. We shall see what we 

 shall see. 



MEETINGS OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, 



There have been three meetings in all. The first was a 

 twin-meeting — to close up the affairs of the old year and to 

 lay out the work for the new year. The second meeting was 

 held in connection with the orchard meeting in August. At 

 this meeting the death of Mr. R. H. Libbey, an efficient and 



