September 15. 1888.] 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



295 



the largest factor of the district, and can readily 

 obtain the market price of the day for his small 

 supply when they have once been examined and 

 branded by the appointed officials. This should 

 show fruit growers the advisability of their com- 

 bining for the purpose of establishing a definite 

 basis upon which their produce should be classed 

 and uniformly packed, by which the contents of a 

 package would be known to wholesale and retail 

 dealers without a personal inspection. For this 

 purpose fruits should be properly sorted and classed 

 as to character and condition into — 



1. " Choice," for special high -class trade; 

 " Prime," for first-class trade ; and " Ordinary," for 

 general trade. 



2. Assorted as to description into firsts, seconds, 

 and thirds sizes. 



3. Choice and prime fruits should be packed into 

 clean, bright, and carefully made packages, so as to 

 present to the buyer a luscious, attractive, and 

 tempting appearance. Ordinary fruit may be packed 

 for general sale in smaller baskets than at present. 



4. It is important to act on the principle that the 

 smaller the package the wider the area of consump- 

 tion, and the better the contents will keep in good 

 order and condition. 



5. Also, that selection as to size and colour with 

 regular packing are the best means for ensuring 

 speedy sales in extended districts at good prices. 



6. Growers should remember and act on the fact 

 that a barely perceptible taint or speck that is care- 

 lessly dealt with by the packer at the farm will in a 

 short time become an odious blemish, and by the time 

 the fruit reaches the market, not only becomes 

 spoiled itself, but damages other fruit, and spoils its 

 value. 



7. A good crop requires marketing with commer- 

 cial experience and judgment, A combination of 

 growers to amalgamate their crops in order that 

 large selections of particular descriptions may be 

 made available for disposal in special directions, and 

 in districts where required, will lead to larger prices 

 being received. 



8. Specially choice goods, suitably packed for dis- 

 play in retailers' shop windows, will at all times 

 command extreme high prices. 



9. Inferior specimens of fruits packed with prime 

 specimens, reduce the value of the prime. 



10. Goods packed, branded, and numbered, that 

 their contents and condition may be known without 

 a personal inspection, will be sent for by purchasers 

 in remote parts, whose convenience or ability does 

 not allow them to attend a market personally. 



The simplicity, ease, and readiness by which these 

 apparently complicated measures may be speedily 

 carried into active existence will be promptly seen 

 by a glance at a package that has been devised for 

 the purpose, which lends itself in every way to the 

 proposed condition of things, for inexpensive in pro- 

 duction it is effective in character, as by its means 

 fruits may be classed, packed, and safely transmitted 

 to any part of the kingdom in large or small quanti- 

 ties, where they will arrive in better condition, and 

 remain so longer than if packed in bulk as at 

 present, also may be disposed of to the individual 

 consumer without any handling and consequent 

 deterioration [see our issue for August 4, last, 

 p. 135, for figure of a fruit transit box. Ed.]. 

 The inexpensive character of the package is its 

 valuable feature, and that is 6<7. per dozen for 

 the boxes and bd. for the crate to hold twenty 

 boxes. Their lightness renders the cost of trans- 

 port less than in the heavy baskets, which have 

 to be sent backwards and forwards, while fruits 

 selected and packed in this manner would be de- 

 liverable in the best possible condition and of the 

 highest value. Thus the second material feature in 

 the science of distribution would be complied with. 



The third feature to which attention may be 

 directed is the transport of fruit at the least pos- 

 sible cost. I do not propase to occupy time by refer- 

 ring to that great evil, the excessive railway rates, 

 which the producers and consumers of the country 

 have so long suffered from, The short-sighted policy 



of the railway authorities is about to be brought 

 under consideration, and our purpose will be best 

 served by attention being directed to the particular 

 points that frnit growers should endeavour to secure 

 for themselves in the forthcoming revision of the 

 charges and conditions of our railway system. In 

 this matter, so far as fruit is concerned, facilities for 

 its effective collection, safe transport, and speedy 

 delivery, are of a much greater consideration than 

 the actual charge made for the services rendered, 

 but this should certainly be a figure within 

 reason; but the principal object that the agri- 

 cultural classes generally, as a body of producers, 

 should seek to obtain, is a ready means for reach- 

 ing consumers in all districts through the existing 

 retail traders. For this purpose they should seek for 

 the establishment of a " farm produce train," a ser- 

 vice to be carried through on the lines of the " par- 

 liamentary train " and the " van train," which was in 

 existence for a number of years, and only recently 

 abandoned. By the parliamentary train the pas- 

 senger rates for one train daily was fixed by law. The 

 van train was for parcels, and the rates were made 

 by the railway companies themselves, being one-half 

 the ordinary parcels rates. With a minimum of 6d. 

 at the present time, a parcel traffic is in existence on 

 all railways by passenger trains, and this is governed 

 by radiYjs of distance ; up to 30 miles being \d. per 

 pound; up to 50 miles id. per pound; up to 100 

 miles, §A per pound, with a minimum rate of 6d. for 

 a parcel. A moderate extension of this parcel system 

 to wider radiuses on the basis of the van train charge 

 — that is, one-half the current parcel rates — would 

 prove advantageous to farmers, and bring the rail- 

 way a large and remunerative traffic. This should 

 be sought for, and would probably be conceded by the 

 railway company without difficulty. 



The outlet for fruits will be found in two direc- 

 tions which have a widely different character, and 

 necessitate different treatment — the supply of London 

 and the very few large towns in the north, and the 

 supply to the small towns and villages throughout 

 the kingdom. With the first we have the large con- 

 centration of fruiterers, greengrocers, and coster- 

 mongers, who have hitherto furnished the means for 

 reaching the public. With the second they have to a 

 great extent done without fruit, as it could not be 

 supplied in a fresh condition. Whether the fruits 

 are intended for London or the country districts, 

 railway companies should be compelled to provide 

 effective refrigerator trucks for their conveyance, in 

 order that its fresh condition may be fully main- 

 tained. Growers know the condition that fruits 

 leave them, but they are not aware of the serious 

 deterioration that takes place in transit before reach- 

 ing their destination, and the consequent enormous 

 depreciation that takes place in values. A few hours 

 makes a great difference in the appearance and 

 flavour of fruits, and there can be no possiblejustifica- 

 tion for the unnecessary loss thus made to the de- 

 triment of the grower, when the fruits could be 

 readily and inexpensively retained in a fine and fresh 

 condition. 



In America the fruit farmers of California and 

 Florida, the extreme western and southern States, 

 send their fruits 2000 and .3000 miles across the vast 

 continent to the markets of New York, Baltimore, 

 Boston, Chicago, &c, where they arrive in fine con- 

 dition, after several days' travel, and invariably bring 

 good results to the grower ; while in this country a 

 fruit grower cannot send his produce a few miles 

 with any certainty of its reaching its destination in a 

 presentable condition, and if he wishes to send any 

 distance other than where an ordinary fruit train runs, 

 there is almost a certainty that it will be useless 

 when it arrives at its destination. This deteriora- 

 tion and its consequent loss is more than a personal 

 loss of the particular sender — it is a diminution of 

 the food supply of the people, and in that light it 

 is a national loss, needlessly incurred, by reason of 

 the negligence and want of care on the part of those 

 who have acquired the right to transpoitthe internal 

 food supplies of the country — aloss which is readily pre- 

 ventive by the use of proper trucks, which the railway 



companies should be compelled to provide themelves, 

 or allow others to provide for them. The companies 

 should also be called upon to accept a truck rate for 

 agricultural produce irrespective of contents. This 

 would enable fruit and other farmers to load trucks 

 in proximity to their farms or on railway sidings 

 with their own labour, and while saving charges send 

 their produce direct to the market. The provision 

 of a regular ami effective daily service for the con- 

 veyance of parcels of food produce in refrigerator 

 cars, at a reasonable advance on the ordinary goods 

 rates, would materially facilitate the communication 

 between producers and consumers, and lead to 

 marked advantages to fruit growers. To simplify 

 matters, the rates by this produce train might be 

 fixed within given areas. Thus all within a radius 

 of one hundred miles one rate, and each additional 

 hundred miles an additional rate. This would bring 

 most of the agricultural districts within reach of 

 populous towns, and thus furnish them with an out- 

 let for their produce. That this system would be 

 advantageous to fruit-growers mav be readily seen, 

 for grocers, dealers, or even consumers in any small 

 town might order any number of the packages of 

 fruit from one upwards, which, packed on the 

 orchard and transmitted by the refrigerator cars, 

 would reach their destination direct, at a small cost 

 and in good condition. The essence of the fruit trade 

 is a multiplication of individual transactions small 

 in extent but numerous in character. It is in the 

 simplification of the distribution of these growers 

 will be in a position to place their produce within 

 reach of consumers at the least possible cost, and 

 thus acquire a further insight into the science of fruit 

 distribution. 

 In conclusion, I submit — 



1. That the simplest and most profitable way to 

 sell fruits is in their natural condition properly 

 classed and packed. 



2. That an ample demand can be ensured for an 

 unlimited quantity from numerous districts in all 

 parts of the kingdom. 



3. That these can be best approached and dealt 

 with by local combinations of growers either direct 

 or through a central agency. 



4. That whatever prices are determined upon 

 should be publicly known and fixed to give retailers 

 a profit. 



5. That the railway companies should be moved 

 to furnish a daily farmer's produce parcel and bulk 

 train service for the carriage of food products in 

 refrigerator trucks between the agricultural and in- 

 dustrial districts at reasonable package and truck 

 rates. 



With the supply of these facilities a demand 

 would be created for their utilisation, and thus bring 

 about an improved condition of all things in which 

 the interests of our agricultural and industrial classes 

 are entwined. 



New or Noteworthy Plants. 



PHAL.ENOPSIS BUrSSONIANA, n. ip* 

 A stately plant, very much like P. Kegnieriaua, 

 but with far brighter colours. The leaf and in- 

 florescence are not distinct. Both the sepals and 

 the petals are of a bright purple hue ; the 

 lateral sepals are bordered inside with white. The 

 petals are much broader than those of Phalaanopsis 

 Regnieriana, and appear always to be hooded 

 over the column. The lip is very distinct. The 

 processses on the stalk of the lip are median, fili- 

 form-linear, not triangular, as in Phaltenopsis 

 Regnieriana. The three spreading lacinia; of the 

 anterior part of the lip are equal, lanceolate-oblong, 

 blunt-acute. There is an emarginate small callus at 

 the beginning of the stalk, and in front of it stands on 



* Pfialtrnopsis Bw/ssoniana, It. sp. — Siiuillima affinis Phalet- 

 nopsidi Regoieriani mento paulo argutiori ; sepalia tepalisquo 

 latioribus, labelli aurieulis unguicularibua Hneari-mliformibus, 

 callo iu apice unguis bilobo parvo, liuea lineari incrassatn 

 bisulca anteposita laciniis oblongolanceis obtuse acuti*, 

 lataralibus divaricatis, omnibus fequalibus; columnee basi 

 angulata. Ab exc. A. fRegnier introducta d nobili Coniili 

 Du Bliy^son dicata. //. G. Jlchb.J. 



