FOURTEENTH ANNrAL MEETING. 55 



year. \\'e make coopers' stuff. We cut the slabs ourselves. 

 I have .Q;ot a man on my place now, and when the season 

 comes on we make provision for that. So we are fortunate 

 in that particular. I have run a cooper shop myself, and 

 sold barrels for 32 cents, and made a little profit on them. 

 That is, for what we call a first-class ten-hoop barrel. 



J\Ir. Waller : How much does that barrel hold ? 



Mr. Lupton : It will hold three full bushels, and perhaps 

 a quart of apples or so- over. 



^Ir. Innis: Is it as large as a flour barrel? 



Mr. Lupton: The Virg-inia law specifies the New York 

 barrel. It is the same barrel that we use for flour, exactly. 

 We sell barrels to the flour mills sometimes, when we can 

 not sell to the orchardists. 



A Member : I would like to ask Mr. Lupton how he ac- 

 counts for the retailer not getting the price that he ought 

 to. so as to give the grower a fair price for his fruit. Is 

 it because there is not enough choice fruit? 



Mr. Lupton : I think the trouble with the retailer is 

 that he gets too much inferior fruit. If he got good fruit, 

 and got it straight from the grower, he would not be able 

 to get that price, that is, if the market was full of carefully 

 selected good fruit. I have never been in a meeting of a hor- 

 ticultural society that there was not some criticism of the 

 way the fruit grower packs his fruit, but that criticism, so 

 far as our section is concerned, is entirely out of place, for 

 at least eighty per cent, of our fruit is all packed by the man 

 who buys it. The grower never packs his fruit, with us. I 

 don't suppose there is one-half of one per cent, of the fruit 

 that comes from our section that shows up in the New York 

 market but what is packed under the direct supervision of 

 the buyer himself. The fact that they come down there and 

 take all our fruit that way shows that it pays to put in good 

 fruit. 



In New York they are up to all sorts of tricks. They turn 

 the barrels upside down before opening, and all that sort of 

 thing, but if there is any difficulty it can not be laid to the 

 growers, for we do not pack our own fruit at all. Never 



