ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. i59 



experience. Late in the spring, we had fifteen hundred barrels 

 of my friend, the Ben Davis, sent from St. Louis. It was just 

 about the 15th of April or the ist of May. These people out 

 there had them, and they were anxious to get them to market, 

 and thev were willing to take desperate chances, so they gave us 

 a consignment of nine carloads of Ben Davis apples, and we got 

 a rate through to Liverpool under refrigeration of something 

 like $1.25 from St. Louis. Those apples sold, almost all of 

 them, at an average of 24 shillings in the English market, or 

 just about $5.75. 



Mr. Hoyt : What is the usual freight rate from New York 

 to Liverpool? 



Mr. Foster : At the present time, for this season, it has been 

 two shillings, and five per cent, primage. It is about 53 or 54 

 cents. Cooperation for the benefit of the countr}- on the part 

 of the trusts has now become a part and parcel of the policy of 

 the steamship lines, and they have given notice of an advance 

 in freight, so we shall have a two and six freight rate now, 

 which will be about 65 cents. But that is not a high rate. The 

 freight rate from Buffalo to New York is 24 cents a barrel, so 

 that really the steamer rate of 65 cents for a trip of 3,000 miles 

 is not so bad. From Boston the rate is much less. We sent 

 apples from Boston for one and six pence, or about 40 cents a 

 barrel from Boston to Liverpool. Boston gets lower rates than 

 we do from New York. 



Mr. J. H. Hale : As I understand Mr. Foster, he is speaking 

 in relation to the Ben Davis apple from a commercial stand- 

 point ; from the dealers' standpoint to-day ? 



Mr. Foster: Entirely. 



Mr. Hale : And we realize the fact that with any reasonable 

 number of barrels on hand you can find a ready sale for them. 

 But on the other hand, every one who has ever tried to eat one 

 of these so-called fine Arkansas Ben Davises, knows that it is not 

 a good eating apple. I don't know of a man living who ever 

 saw a man eat two of them the same day and live. But plenty 

 of people somehow or other buy them, and that is the reason 

 Foster is handling them. He speaks about their being planted 

 in the West by the hundreds and thousands, but we don't want 

 to let that tempt us to go to planting Ben Davis here. We want 

 to raise some good apples, and you can imagine what will hap- 



