176 FRUIT HARVESTING, STORING, MARKETING 



III. STATE FRUIT-PACKAGE LAWS 



The writer is unable to say with certainty that the 

 fruit-package laws transcribed below are the only ones 

 on the statute books in the United States and Canada ; 

 but he has carefully looked after all the states likely 

 to have such laws, and these are all that can be found. 

 Even these are mostly moribund. The Missouri apple- 

 barrel law, for instance, is entirely unknown to many 

 of the best horticulturists in that state. Some of 

 whom inquiry was made said there was no fruit-pack- 

 age law in existence in Missouri. In no state in the 

 Union is one of these laws enforced. 



In fact a study of the laws themselves would give 

 the entirest stranger the feeling that they were not 

 seriously intended. Most of them have a manifestly 

 perfunctory air about them. In most cases no adequate 

 provision is made for their enforcement. In New 

 York, for instance, no one is charged with the enforce- 

 ment of the law. A man who considers himself de- 

 frauded by short packages may bring action under the 

 law, but he must do so at his own expense and risk. 



It seems to the writer that the practicability of a 

 fruit-package law — at least, in the United States — ^may 

 be seriously questioned. There is no denying that 

 anything which would tend to secure greater uniform- 

 ity of packages, or which would tend to decrease 

 fraudulent packing, would be a good thing. But con- 

 siderable machinery would be required to make such a 

 law effective ; and after it was all arranged it would 

 be harder to operate the machinery than to avoid the 

 trouble itself. 



