Part I.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. 47 



and an effort has been made to convince fruit growers that our 

 inspectors' principal business this year was to help them under- 

 stand the law. Most growers have taken the law in a good 

 spirit, and it has not been found necessary up to the present 

 time to conduct any prosecutions under it. Some trouble was 

 experienced early in the season with out-of-State buyers, but in 

 every case the offending party, when shown that he was liable 

 to prosecution, has come around and promised to comply with 

 the law. The fact that the apple crop was of such poor quality 

 in some sections, of course, added to the difficulty of enforcing 

 the law in its first year, and it is believed that with a crop of 

 normal quality, such as we may hope for next year, a great 

 improvement will be shown. After two years of educational 

 work it may now be presumed that both growers and buyers 

 are well acquainted with the provisions of the law, and in future 

 its enforcement should be more strict. The secretary believes, 

 however, that this year a lenient enforcement of the law was 

 wisest, as we must have the enthusiastic support of our fruit 

 growers in order to make it a success. 



Some of our fruit growers seemed at first afraid to pack under 

 the law, and seemed to have the impression that its provisions 

 were impossibly strict. For this reason more apples were shipped 

 to the Boston market in bushel boxes than ever before, and many 

 growers marked their entire crop ungraded when much of it would 

 have conformed to a higher mark. Closer study will show that 

 this law is in its essentials a simple one, and the secretary believes 

 that another year will find a much larger proportion of the fruit 

 packed under the Massachusetts standard A grade. The law 

 should remain substantially the same as at present for another 

 year at least. One minor change that should be made, however, 

 is the elimination of the words "of the packer or" in section 5, 

 so as to make every barrel bear the name of the person responsible 

 for the packing. The cost of enforcing the law for the six months 

 it was in effect in 1916 was about $2,000. There will be consider- 

 able enforcement work during the months of December, January, 

 February and March, which was not the case last year. 



I recommend that in addition to the above amendment an 

 appropriation of $2,500 be allowed for the enforcement of the 

 law during 1917. 



