FOURTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 75 



pies are selling: in New York Citiy at four dollars a box. while 

 at the same time New York ^rowers are shipping Baldwins as 

 far west as San Francisco and under-selling- the Oregon apples 

 in that market. That is a good thing for the service, but it 

 seems to me that that contains a little lesson which we ought 

 to learn. If the Oregon growers can ship their fruit to New 

 York and get bigger prices than the eastern growers, there is 

 certainly some reason for it. There is certainly something 

 wrong about the way in which we handle our fruit. Possibly 

 it is because some inferior fruit gets in in that way and tends to 

 hold .the averao-e price down. You do not want any inferior 

 fruit on the market. We do not want anything but good fruit 

 on the market, and I am really surprised to think that the fruit 

 growers of Xew York State should so far forget their busi- 

 ness princinles as to get caught in any such snap as the buyers 

 seem to have worked on them last year, according to Mr. 

 Cross's statement. When the apple buyers came down to 

 A'irginia they commenced to tell the same story, that there was 

 an enormous crop and the price was low, and all that sort of 

 thing. They wanted to buy our apples, but we said "No, you 

 cannot have them." The apple buyers came into our section 

 and said "We can get apples cheaper home," but afterward 

 they came around and said "We have got a market for Vir- 

 ginia fruit, and we have got to take back some Mrginia fruit," 

 and so they took twenty thousand barrels. I think it was main- 

 ly on account of the quality and the way we handled the fruit. 

 I assure the gentleman from New^ York that we do not put 

 any wormy apples into the barrels. No bruised apples go into 

 the barrels. No apples that have any punctures of skin go into 

 the barrels. We are very careful indeed in picking to prevent 

 bruises. I have discharged a number of men for being care- 

 less in picking, by holding his thumb in such a way so that in 

 breaking the stem it was almost certain to break the skin. That 

 ruins an apple for the purpose of going into a barrel to be 

 shipped. 



I am very well satisfied since I have heard the gentleman 

 from New York tell how they do things up there. 



Mr. Cross: Mr. President, the gentleman from Virginia 

 said that he was not up here to tell why they did those things. 



