14 



will take all the necessary steps to protect tlie healthful and unadulterated wares of 

 our exporters from unfair and unreasonable interference when offered for sale in the 

 markets of Germany, and that it will use every means to prevent any restrictions 

 being imposed upon them here, save such as are actually justiiiable from a sanitary 

 standpoint, and such as are applied to similar articles when produced here or 

 imported from other countries than the United States. 



DRIED APPLES AT COLOGNE. 



lu a report of William D. Warner, the United States consul at Cologne, 

 dated February 9, 1895, the text of an order warning the public against 

 the consumption of American evaporated apples was given. The full 

 report is as follows : 



An order has just been issued by the police administration of Cologne and pub- 

 lished in the local papers warning the public against eating sliced American dried 

 apples. It says that large quantities of such apple slices, chiefly of American 

 origin, are oflered for sale here which contain a larger or smaller quantity of zinc. 

 Of 13 samples selected for investigation, 11 are said to have contained zinc. It 

 asserts, further, that the presence of zinc is due to the fact that the apple slices 

 from America are not dried, as is done here, on wooden racks, but on zinc netting. 

 By this process there is formed in the apples malate of zinc, which has an analogous 

 operation to that of lactate of zinc. According to experts, the eating of such an 

 article may undoubtedly be injurious to health, especially to children and those who 

 have weak constitutions. Continuing, the mayor of the city says : 



"I therefore f&el obliged to give strict warning against the sale and the eating of 

 American dried apple' slices, and give notice to those oflering such articles for sale 

 that they will be proceeded against in accordance with the imperial law regulating 

 the trade in food and food products." 



There is a considerable trade in this market in American dried apples, and I am 

 informed by an agent representing a large Chicngo firm here that this order will 

 frighten the public against eating such apples, and thereby injure, if not destroy 

 altogether, this trade. 



According to the statistics for the German Empire, there were imported into Ger- 

 many from the United States in 1893, 2,968 tons, and in 1894, 2,133 tons of dried fruit, 

 which I understand to be dried apple slices. 



In a supplemental report of the same consul, dated February 11, 1895, 

 attention is called to some modifications of the order, the nature of 

 which will be indicated by the selections from the report given below: 



Supplementary report. 



Referring to my report forwarded to the Department of State under date of Feb- 

 ruary 9, 1 have to report further that a number of the dealers here in American dried 

 apple slices have since appealed to the mayor of Cologne to modify his warning to 

 the public under date of the 6th instant so as not to prejudice consumers against 

 such apple slices that are dried (evaporated) on wooden racks and contain no zinc. 

 This has been done publicly by the mayor as follows : 



*'My notice of the 6th instant bus given rise to the misunderstanding that the 

 eating of American evaporated apple slices are injurious to health, and those persons 

 offering such article for sale Avould be punished. This is by no means the case. The 

 notice has reference only to such American dried apple slices as have been dried on 

 zinc netting and contain zinc, and not to those that have been dried on wooden racks 

 and contain no zinc." 



If the American firms desire to hold on to this already thriving American trade in 

 this market, they are advised to evaporate the apples only on wooden racks and see 





