60 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 250 



Table 3. — Average Prices Received by Growers for Ungraded Apples, 

 1925 and 1926 Crops. 



Variety After Removing Graded After Removing Culls 



Fruit, Culls and Ciders and Ciders Only 



per box per box 



Baldwin $ .48 $1.14 



Gravenstein .75 1.42 



Mcintosh 1.17 1.67 



Wealthy .88 1.04 



called "tree run" (culls and ciders only being removed) might well be 

 designated as ungraded or unclassified. 



In order to determine with accuracy just how profitable grading may be, 

 just how much more the consumer will pay for graded than for un- 

 graded apples, it would be necessary to compare lots exactly the same 

 in every particular — variety, volume, quality, color, etc., even including 

 market conditions, one lot being sold graded and the other ungraded, 

 culls and ciders being taken from both lots. 



Obviously it is impossible to fulfill all these requirements. Data con- 

 cerning such exactly comparable lots of apples are not available. The 

 best figures at hand include no information as to these items in the case 

 of tree run fruit. Prices of apples sold as tree run, culls and ciders out, 

 are compared in Table 4 with prices of A and B grade apples. 



Table 4. — Comparison of Average Prices of Graded and Ungraded 

 (Tree Run) Apples, 1925 and 1926 Crops.* 



Variety 



Baldwin 

 Gravenstein 

 Mcintosh 

 Wealthy 



* The prices of graded fruit are from the records of the Nashoba Apple 

 Packing Association : those for ungraded are from schedules secured in 

 the aforenamed study of variety performance, not yet completed. 



These figures indicate that in general only A grade or Fancy apples of 

 these varieties brought prices which warranted grading. Only as B grade 

 apples are considered as a by-product of better grades did the grower find 

 it worth while to pack them. The market is, insofar as these figures 

 may be taken as fairly typical, rather indifferent to the grading of Wealthy 

 apples, the ungraded lots having brought nearly as high a price as A 

 grade and 30 per cent above the price for B grade. 



The preference for A grade as indicated by these prices is more ap- 

 parent in the case of Gravenstein than in that of any other variety in- 

 cluded in the table. 



It is evident that most consumers definitely prefer A grade apples of 

 the leading varieties. This preference is apparent in Table 5 in which 

 are presented the average prices by grades for each of the five varieties 

 in the seasons for which figures are available. 



