430 CITRUS FRUITS AND THEIR CULTURE. 



satisfactory, as they demonstrated that with a suitable 

 package and careful handling and manipulation that 

 oranges could be transported and sold ; for when we closed 

 the packing house in the spring, we had standing orders 

 from New York alone for about 200 boxes per week. In 

 my canvass among the dealers and packers in New York 

 I came to the conclusion that the success or failure of 

 the enterprise would to a great extent depend upon the 

 care in handling and the proper classification of the fruit, 

 and that only perfect fruit should be put in the box. We, 

 therefore, from the start rejected creased, plugged, thorned 

 and all imperfect oranges. As the result of this care, we 

 had but one complaint of fruit arriving in bad order. We 

 had a considerable quantity of very fine oranges from the 

 Lee grove, Leesburg. One lot came in a little soft. We 

 shipped twenty boxes of it to Mills & Everals, New York, 

 billing them at $6.00 per box, f. o. b; Palatka. They com- 

 plained they were not quite up to standard in condition, 

 and asked for a reduction of $1.00 per box, which we, of 

 course, conceded. This close assorting left a considerable 

 quantity of cull fruit. A laughable incident in connec- 

 tion with it is worth relating: 



"Judge Gillis, a prominent lawyer of Palatka, came 

 into the packing house one day to see what we w r ere doing. 

 Looking about he saw quite a pile of culls in one corner, 

 and asked what we intended to do with them. I replied 

 that we expected to sell them in Palatka, but if we failed, 

 we should dump them. He expressed some surprise, and 

 soon left. Meeting a friend on the street he said to him 

 that he had been down to see that Yankee who had come 

 to show them how to pack oranges; that he was shown 

 quite a pile of nice-looking fruit in one corner and was 

 told that unless it could be sold in Palatka it would be 



