142 •Strawberry-Growing 



There is no federal law regulating the size of berry boxes 

 for interstate commerce, but the outside of every crate 

 must be marked with its contents in accordance with the 

 regulation requiring that all classes of food must be 

 plainly and conspicuously marked in terms of weight, 

 measure or numerical count on the outside of the covering 

 or container usually delivered to customers. This means 

 that each crate must have the number of boxes it contains, 

 and the quantity stamped on the outside. Canadian 

 growers long have used the two-fifths and four-fifths quart 

 dry measure, instead of the full pint and full quart. They 

 contend that the bulk of fruit in a full quart is too large to 

 insure safe arrival in a distant market without crushing. 

 A British Columbia law requires strawberry boxes to 

 hold one pound net ; a pound of berries is about four-fifths 

 of a quart. The full pint basket is growing in favor in 

 British Columbia, the Pacific states and in the South, 

 especially for long distance shipping, early in the season, 

 when prices are high. 



A few years ago, four sizes of "quart" boxes could 

 be found in any large market — standard dry, stand- 

 ard wine, scant or short, and skin or snide. The scant 

 quart box, which usually contained 60^ cubic inches, 

 once was used extensively and is still sold. Snide or 

 scalper boxes frequently contained only forty-seven 

 cubic inches. In 1888, snide quart boxes, holding but 

 forty-two cubic inches, were used in New Jersey, until 

 driven out by law. This sharp practice is no longer 

 tolerated. The drift of the times is strongly toward 

 honest measure. 



boundaries, that is, a full dry quart, dry pint or half pint : Delaware, 

 Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, 

 New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode 

 Island, Wisconsin. 



