1922] 



A Chip Basket Factory. 



1003 



a failure, but subsequently 1 lb. punnets were obtained from 

 London. The fruit was ready for gathering some ten days earlier 

 than from other out-of-door sources, and very high prices were 

 obtained. From this small beginning the strawberry industry 

 has continuously extended until the present output of the district 

 is several hundred tons per annum. As this quantity is almost 

 all put on the market in small packages an enormous number of 

 packages is required. 



At first, as above stated, punnets were obtained from London, 

 but as the acreage of strawberries grew it was felt that an effort 

 should be made to make them locally. Arrangements were first 

 made with a Plymouth firm of timber merchants who installed 

 special machinery for cutting the timber into shavings of suitable 

 length and width. The shavings were tied into bundles and 

 forwarded to the fruit growing district, where the women and 

 children soon learned to weave them. The price paid for this 

 work was Is. per gross. The work was done in the workpeople's 

 own cottages, and occupied them through the autumn and winter 

 months. Later a further progressive step was taken, when steam 

 planing machinery was installed in the district where the fruit 

 was grown, and the business developed so successfully that 

 besides supplying the local need, some thousands of gross were 

 annually supplied to growers in Hampshire and Middlesex and 

 even so far afield as Edinburgh. This continued until some ten 

 years ago when another kind of package became popular and 

 rapidly superseded the round punnet. This was the chip basket, 

 a strong neat package containing 8-4 lb. (or for fruit other than 

 strawberries 12 lb.) each. These baskets, which had metal 

 handles and a cardboard, or chip, cover, did not require to be 

 packed in cases as the punnets did, and were much preferred by 

 the public. They were supplied in thousands from factories 

 at Manchester and Glasgow, and consequently the punnet- 

 making of the Tamar district ceased. 



About the time when this happened the growers of the district 

 formed themselves into a Fruit Growers' Co-operative Associa- 

 tion, chiefly for the purpose of obtaining better prices for their 

 fruit, especially that which had to be sold by the ton for jam. 



They were materially aided in this by the officials of the Agri- 

 cultural Organisation Society, who attended several meetings 

 and explained the advantages of such co-operation. Some of the 

 members of this Association were willing to increase the capital 

 of the Association so as to establish a chip basket factory, but. 

 as the outlay for providing the necessary plant would have been 



