Lack of standards was a handicap to growers belonging to cooperative 
marketing associations because there was no practical basis for pooling their 
products. Without standards a basis was also lacking for the safe and success- 
ful use of credit. 
Such were some of the problems that confronted the fruit and vegetable in- 
dustry at the turn of the century, when the volume of produce being shipped 
was increasing by leaps and bounds. 
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT STANDARDIZATION 
Growers were really responsible for the first efforts to ease a bad situation 
and they took the first step in an attempt to establish a measure of commercial 
standardization by marking containers with their names. Many were success- 
ful in building up a personal reputation by packing a high-quality product or 
by honesty of pack. Growers’ names and addresses are not so helpful to them 
now in selling produce as they were originally because the Federal Food, Drug, 
and Cosmetic Act, and most of the State standardization laws or rules and 
regulations established thereunder require that all containers be marked with 
the name and address of the packer or distributor. 
The next step in the evolution of standardization was grading on the markets 
by commission men. Much of the produce coming into the markets was of 
poor quality and failed to meet the demands of the retail trade; but rather 
than criticize the producer whose business he wished to keep, the commission 
man did his own sorting and repacking. This grading in the city markets 
reached considerable proportions before the more definite State and Federal 
standards were established. Another common practice was for city dealers 
to send their representatives to country shipping points in order to purchase and 
supervise the grading and packing of products demanded by their trade. 
Another development in standardization was the use of trade-marks and 
brands by some of the larger shippers’ and producers’ organizations. This 
development immediately preceded the use of definite, established standards 
and was in reality a primitive system of grading. The shipper who adopted 
a trade-mark or brand usually tried to have his fruits and vegetables meet 
certain standards or at least he did not allow the more defective products to 
get into the pack. Use of brands did not prove very successful, however, as 
dealers in the markets used them in competitive advertising and there was a 
general tendency to make the buyer think that the brands which a dealer 
handled were superior to the corresponding brands of his competitor. Brands 
and trade-marks are used extensively today but their use is often coupled with 
definite official standards. 
Such were the first meager attempts by individuals a commercial firms 
to solve some of the knotty problems which confronted the fruit and vegetable 
industry before the establishment of State and national standards and before 
legislation was enacted to govern the standardization of fruits and vegetables. 
GOVERNMENT PARTICIPATES IN FIELD OF STANDARDIZATION 
Representatives of Congress in Washington naturally became conscious 
of the chaotic conditions existing in the fruit and vegetable industry through 
their constituents. The first attempt of the Federal Government to relieve 
the situation was in 1912 when Congress passed the Sulzer Bill, otherwise 
known as the United States Apple Grading Law. This act specified dimensions 
for the standard apple barrel and provided certain requirements for standard 
grades of apples of various sizes when packed in standard barrels. The act 
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