ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. i49 



of rubbish eliminated, he could buy even more liberally and sell 

 cheaper. How often when most liberally supplied with goods, 

 the commission merchant finds the trade will float past him, 

 because he has not what they want, and are willing to pay for. 

 The knife is put in, the wagon boy or huckster gets the goods ; 

 the commission man works for little or nothing, and the shipper 

 gets what is left. 



Turning from our home markets to those of the United King- 

 dom and the Continent, and we have the same problem to face. 

 Our average annual export of fresh apples from the United 

 States and Canada during the last twenty years has been 

 1,000,000 liarrels. For the last several years it has averaged 

 1,250,000 to 1,500,000 barrels. During the big season of 1896-7 

 it reached 3,000.000 barrels. It is a trade well worth conserv- 

 ing, and, b}- reason of geographical position, means more to 

 New England than to any other part of our commonwealth. 

 Here again we find grading and packing defective, but, by 

 reason of European sales being almost entirely at auction, where 

 samples are dumped, thereby disclosing the entire contents of 

 packages, irregularities are quickly uncovered, and goods are 

 sold more nearly for what they are worth. 



One of the most interesting sights in the world to the lover of 

 fruits is the Liverpool Auction Room, where, in addition to 

 oranges, grapes and other seasonable products, as high as 

 50,000 barrels of apples have been sold in one busy day. How 

 absolutely essential is it, therefore, that fruits going abroad 

 should be properly graded and packed. It is only within a 

 twelvemonth that some of us have listened to the reports of 

 Canadian commissioners sent abroad by their government to 

 investigate the methods of sale, with a view to the betterment of 

 conditions and the enlargements of markets for Canadian food 

 products. Their recital of the irregular methods of Canadian 

 apple packers (largely growers of fruits) was both interesting 

 and instructive. It displayed the Canadian grower as one very 

 far removed from him who gives much that little may be 

 received in return. The exhaustive report of these fearless 

 emissaries of the Canadian government was one of the severest 

 arraignments of irregular methods ever listened to. As a result 

 of it all, and with an eye to the interest of a business that was 

 rapidly losing caste abroad, a most drastic law was passed by 



