ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 33 



Afternoon Session— 1.30 P. M. 



Convention called to order at 1.30 ]■. m.. President Piatt in 

 the Chair. 



The President: If you are all settled in your seats, I want 

 to introduce to you a gentleman from New York City who 

 used to be a commission man but is now an editor — Mr. Tuck 

 of the "Producer and Distributor." 



Mr. Tuck : Ladies and Gentlemen : I had the pleasure of 

 being in Hartford some two weeks ago and through my friend, 

 Mr. Brewer, and also through my friend, Mr. Hale of South 

 Glastonbury, my attention \vas called to the meeting of your 

 Society which was to take place to-day. I, therefore, took it 

 upon myself to pay you a visit, as I had heard that your 

 previous annual gathering was productive of much good. 

 x\fter having been editor of the Fruit Trade Journal, believing 

 that I had sufficient theoretical knowledge to enable me to 

 engage in the commission business I took the opportunity 

 and entered into that business in New York. We followed 

 it up for two years, and until the finances got so low that I 

 made up my mind that I didn't know anything about the busi- 

 ness and I quit. So I drifted back into the newspaper business, 

 and therefore came up to Hartford to report your proceedings. 

 My predecessor in the other newspaper told me that your 

 meetings gave a very good knowledge upon various subjects, 

 but there are certain other things in connection with this busi- 

 ness that I think it would pay a person to think over, and that 

 is particularly if you are engaged in commercial fruit growing, 

 or fruit and produce growing. It has sometimes been a sur- 

 prise to me that the growers do not pay the same attention 

 as to how their packages are put up as they do to the growing 

 of the contents. In the present age of either over-production 

 or under-consumption it l)ehooves every fruit grower, or every 

 grower of fruit for market, to pay some attention to this subject 

 so as to be able to compete with almost every state in the 

 Union, particularly so far as the trade in the large commercial 

 cities is concerned. Take, for instance, Xew York, IJoston, 

 Philadelphia, and a few other cities of that same class. There 

 is hardly a product of any prominence known in this line but 

 what will reach any one of these markets, and tliey are there 

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