120 state; pomologicai, society. 



experience I have had with fancy fruit, that is, good table apples, 

 will bring from fifty cents to two and three dollars more per 

 barrel packed in boxes than they will in barrels. There are 

 several reasons, of course. One is the consumer in our cities 

 as a rule, apples being worth from five to eight dollars a barrel, 

 would not care to take three bushels of those fancy apples home 

 at one time; they prefer to take one bushel. Secondly, they 

 arrive there in so much better shape, less bruised. And for 

 these reasons alone, of course, if properly handled they would 

 bring more money. Our No. i Gravensteins this year packed 

 in bushel boxes sold for $2.75. We should have been obliged 

 to get $8.25 per barrel to be equal to the price in the boxes. The 

 barrel apples were selling at that time for about $5 to $5.50. 

 So you can see that it pays if it is done correctly. But at the 

 same time you find that very few parties are willing to take the 

 pains to put them into boxes and put them in in shape, because 

 of the extra trouble. It is more trouble and you must get more 

 in boxes, because, in the first place, they must be faced, every 

 box must be faced the same as the barrel is. Nail the cover on, 

 turn the box over and face the apples, and you come to face 

 three boxes instead of one barrel and there is extra work. Then 

 when we come to fill up and level up there can be no pressing 

 as there is in the barrel. There would be a little give to the 

 apples, and the large distance down from the barrel you can 

 press a little and the apples will give way. But in the box there 

 will be only three or four layers of apples. And are we ready ? 

 — very few of us, I think, are ready as yet to sort our apples 

 the way Oregon people do and have every apple in the box the 

 same size, or almost. Then what are we going to do with our 

 balance. We can make up two boxes perhaps, but we are hardly 

 yet ready to go to the pains they do in their large orchards, their 

 large packing houses. You will notice, you go into the market, 

 and you see the Oregon fruit, you will find that the whole box, 

 like the Southern oranges are sorted to a size and packed, cer- 

 tain boxes taking so many apples, the large apples, the next 

 grade taking an apple of the same size but just enough to put 

 it in in layers. Our apples, as we are packing now, must be put 

 in loose from the face and then it is — and well, I sometimes told 

 the boys that were with me when I was levelling up, that it 



