18 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



lines, jSrst, of grading and standardizing apples, so that there 

 will be a report come in from Buffalo, New York, and one from 

 Cincinnati, and another from Boston and Portland, and we will 

 have some understanding as to what it means. It will not rep- 

 resent a different standard in Buffalo and a different standard 

 in Boston, but it will bring us together to know and to get a 

 legislative standard that will help solve that problem. It is 

 going to teach us our own weakness. I say that that point 

 will tend towards solution. 



It has had other effects and other benefits. Mr. Tinkham 

 could probably give you this better than I could cite it, but it 

 taught us in this last summer at one time that the cabbage on 

 the market was not worth the price of harvesting and hauling 

 in. The farmer might have learned some of that from bitter 

 experience, but with that Market News Service continuing, it 

 showed that the market after a while had regained to the point 

 where it would warrant cutting and bringing the cabbage into 

 the market. 



We all have that time on the farm or in the garden or in 

 the orchard when we are doubtful as to whether or not the 

 products will bring the actual cost of gathering and of the pack- 

 age or container in which they must necessarily be shipped, so 

 that we are hesitant about which step to take; but this sort of 

 service will tell us whether the markets, our local markets, will 

 absorb them, and tell us whether or not there are other markets 

 that are available. 



Now there are thoughts in the minds of those in Washing- 

 ton, and some of us in this section have the belief, that this 

 information could be disseminated on a more extensive basis to 

 greater advantage; that if the people of Hartford were better 

 informed of the condition of the peach market in Portland they 

 would be in an advantageous position. If the men over in 

 Albany, when they have their excess supply of some commodity, 

 as they had the spinach, would learn that Springfield and 

 Worcester were short on spinach it would enable them to ship 

 that commodity in here and receive a better return from it. 

 It would enable the farmers of Worcester, if they had the 

 service in operation here, to ship over to Albany when they 



