130 FRUIT-GROWING 



always knows what to expect when he pur- 

 chases a standard box of western fruit. On the 

 other hand, the buyer never knows what he will 

 draw if he buys a barrel of eastern grown ap- 

 ples. Even the quality of the pack in the same 

 orchard will vary from year to year and in 

 some orchards the quality will vary greatly 

 between the two heads of the barrel. 



The old habit of fooling the public by put- 

 ting all the little apples in the middle of the 

 barrel has been so firmly fastened on a certain 

 number of the fruit-producing citizens of the 

 East that it is hard for them to shake it off. 

 The best growers realize that their barrel 

 packs must represent a more uniform standard 

 of perfection and many of them pack barrel 

 apples that are honest from top to bottom. 



There have been attempts to pass laws re- 

 garding the packing of apples in barrels and 

 several such laws are on the books to-day, but 

 almost without exception they have failed to 

 make very much impression on the market in 

 general. The United States Standard Grade 

 Law was never anything more than a joke. It 

 required certain labeling on the barrels before 

 they could be branded "U. S. Standard." If 

 they were not so branded one could ship his 

 fruit any place without let or hindrance. The 

 "TJ. S. Standard," on the other hand, was 

 worded so as to allow the grower ten per cent. 



