1 88 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



any consideration, but a few shippers in the west got together 

 a year ago, a dozen or more, and organized, and said we will 

 hammer congress until we get this thing going, and they sent 

 out word to every business organization in the country, and 

 to the state granges, and the state agricultural societies, and 

 asked them to appoint a delegate and come to a convention 

 and talk this over. The Connecticut Pomological Society 

 was not represented, but the Connecticut state grange was 

 and the business men's association was. Four hundred repre- 

 sentatives of the different organizations met in St. Louis, and 

 there was something doing, and they talked long and loud, 

 and got up some resolutions and sent a committee down to 

 Washington to see the president, and you know what happened 

 when the president sent his message to congress ; there was 

 a good deal in it about transportation, and since then they 

 have been hustling, and a bill has been introduced in congress 

 giving more powers to the interstate commerce commission- 

 ers, wdiich is liable to be passed in a very short while. 



Now, as to the Cjuestion of money making ideas in fruit 

 packages. There is nothing especially new in the last year 

 excepting the idea is growing, — and the idea is worth more 

 than the fruit package sometimes, — because it shapes condi- 

 tions that make the fruit package valuable. — the idea is grow- 

 ing more and more that, to make money in fruit culture, we 

 must get as directly as we can from the orchard and field to 

 the consumer, with as few intervening handlers and dealers 

 as possible. Any package, and I think brother Lupton made 

 that clear yesterday, that comes from a fruit farm to the 

 hands of any dealer through the hands of the wholesaler, 

 which the dealer has to break up and divide its contents for 

 the consumer, retards consumption. That has been the great 

 trouble with the apple barrel ; the people have not consumed 

 as many apples as they want, because the package is wrong, 

 it is too large -a package. We must get family size packages 

 for everything we handle. Here in Connecticut we use the 

 half bushel peach basket, and except for canning purposes 

 it is too large, and therefore the dealers- peddle them out by 

 the quart and the dozen, and the consumption is retarded. 



