102 THE AMEPaCAN APPLE ORCHARD 



packed them in boxes, making- (juite a profit for them- 

 selves thereby. 



The writer feels justified in relating here an item 

 of personal experience. A few years ago we had some 

 Gravenstein, Alclntosh and Famevise apples ready for 

 market in October. We wrote to the commission men 

 with whom we were doing business at that time — a 

 thoroughly reliable firm, by the way — asking them 

 if they would advise us to ship in boxes. Their re- 

 ply was about as follows : "The fruit is yours. You 

 can do as you please with it. Our advice would be, 

 however, not to use any boxes." Inasmuch as we 

 were anxious to learn how the fruit would handle, 

 and as we had the boxes on hand, we divided the ship- 

 ment, sending one-half in barrels and one-half in 

 boxes. The fruit was all of the same grade, but 

 that in boxes was wrapped in paper. The whole lot 

 was sent to the commission man whose advice has 

 just been quoted. When the returns came back 

 we found that the barrels had sold for $2 each, which 

 was the top quotation at the time ; but the boxes had 

 also sold for $2 each. In other words, one bushel of 

 apples nicely wrapped and packed in boxes brought 

 just as much as three bushels of the same fruit in a 

 barrel. 



The three boxes cost 45 cents. A barrel at that 

 time was worth 35 to 40 cents. A little more time 

 was consumed in packing the three boxes than in 

 packing one barrel. The cost of the paper wrapping 

 may be fairly disregarded. 



The great advantage of the box lies not so much in 

 the fact that it displays the fruit to better advantage, 

 for it does not always do so, but in the fact that it pre- 

 sents a quantity of fruit which many consumers prefer 



