APPENDIX. , 385 



interest of these importing merchants to continue this practice, 

 for, as long as the duty is two and a half cents per pound, and 

 they only pay duty on actual weight, they make two and a half 

 cents on every pound of raisins short in a box, and supposing 

 they only make five cents on every box upon a cargo of thirty 

 thousand boxes, it amounts to the nice little sum of $1,500. 

 While it is both desirable and feasible to have a uniform quantity 

 packed in the boxes, a still greater reform, which is within the 

 power of the dealers in the United States (and one which would 

 insure the continued practice of packing a uniform quantity in a 

 box), is the inauguration of the practice of buying as well as sell- 

 ing all raisins by weight. I do not believe that the retail mer- 

 chants of the United States are so unmindful of their own inter- 

 ests as to desire to continue the practice of buying an uncertain 

 quantity of raisins " by the box," when they can buy a certain 

 quantity " by the pound," nor that they are so foohsh as to wish 

 to continue figuring their margin of profit on an uncertain basis. 

 It only remains for them to manifest to the wholesale houses with 

 whom they trade their wish to buy their raisins by weight. The 

 wholesale merchants in turn will then combine and force the im- 

 porting fruit houses, who are alone to blame, into the practice of 

 selling by weight. 



I forgot to state that loose muscatels were originally those 

 raisins which fell from the stems during the process of drying, or 

 were clipped off from the fuller bunches in order that all parts of 

 the bunch might be exposed to the sun. These at first were sold 

 for a lower price, but as they were usually large, fine fruit, they 

 became very popular, and now fashion in trade is again exempli- 

 fied by growers positively having to strip from the stems a con- 

 siderable quantity of fine fruit in order to fill the orders for 

 "loose muscatels." I also forgot to mention that the experiment 

 of drying raisins by artificial heat is being tried here, two dryers, 

 somewhat on the Alden jproeess, being already in use, and the 

 results thus far are quite encouraging. 



After the raisins are received from the farmers by the ship- 

 ping houses in Malaga, they are placed in warehouses and every 

 box is overhauled, each layer being turned and inspected and on 

 all the better qualities the papers changed, sometimes very ex- 

 85 



