I02 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



dition. Put up the fruit in packages that handle easily; 

 don't use sixty-quart crates and expect them to go as well 

 as in light crates by express. Express messengers have to 

 handle them quickly and often pile them five or six high 

 in the cars. I wras in the car one day and heard the 

 expressman say: "Damn those sixty-quart crates!" I 

 then laid mine one side, and the next winter cut them 

 down to thirty-two quarts each. 



As to returning empty crates. At our Massachusetts 

 fruit growers meeting last month a majority present decided 

 that it did not pav to have them returned; that it was bet- 

 ter to use new, cheaper crates and let them go with the 

 fruit ; but that is not my practice. I have now several 

 homely heavy thirty-two-quart crates that I was foolish 

 enought to pay Mr. Hale $i each for, eighteen years ago. 

 They have been in use every year, and are now to all 

 appearances about as good as ever; probably the cheapest 

 crates I ever bought, though I have gathered many of late 

 years at ten cents each. One rule I will give, is this: Find 

 a dealer or commission merchant in whom you have the 

 utmost confidence; then work together in confidence; he 

 needs yours as much as you do his, and no more ; there should 

 be mutual dependence. Don't try to sell to three or four 

 dealers in same town or city. But at the same time, keep 

 posted as to prices in various places. I shipped one morn- 

 ing twelve crates of raspberries to six cities and towns — 

 two crates to each. Five of them returned me twelve cents 

 per quart, while the sixth paid me eighteen cents per 

 quart. The next season there was the same amount of 

 difference in prices in strawberries, but not the same city 

 paying the high price on the strawberries that paid the 

 most for raspberries the previous season. We growers 

 have a right to all we can get out of the fruit, if honestly 

 packed from top to bottom, and remember, we must earn 

 our money by head work as well as muscle, from start to 

 finish. 



I have given you m-y opinions and methods. But I have 

 in mind an acquaintance who works on a different plan, 

 which I will now give you in short: He thinks he has 

 been successful, but savs he has no time to cater to 



