THE JOURNAL 



OF THE 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Vol. X. No. 2. SEPTEMBER, 1903. 



GRADING AND PACKING FRUIT AND 

 VEGETABLES. 



Experience in modern business competition convincingly 

 demonstrates the necessity for strict attention to every detail 

 that will honestly enhance the value or facilitate the sale of all 

 merchandise. With heavy expenses in production on the one 

 hand, and low selling prices on the other, the margin of profit is 

 often so small that the greatest care is requisite to prevent its 

 complete obliteration. Competitors in other countries have 

 observed the weak places in our methods, and have taken the 

 fullest advantage of their discoveries. Warning notes have been 

 repeatedly sounded by the more advanced of our own country- 

 men, and in recent years there has been some awakening to a 

 knowledge of defects that militate seriously against success, and 

 which can yet be either reduced in importance or completely 

 removed. Perhaps no industry affords a more striking illustra- 

 tion of this than the one which is concerned in supplying the 

 public with home grown fruit and vegetables. Intensive culti- 

 vation has been carried in many places to a high pitch of 

 excellence, and British horticulturists pride themselves, justly, 

 upon their skill as producers. 



Admirable and necessary as the highest cultivation must 

 always be, yet something more is required to ensure complete 

 commercial success, namely, the conveyance of the produce in 

 the best possible style to the market or to the consumer. It is 

 at this point too many fail, and a material proportion of unprofit- 

 able sales is mainly attributable to negleet in presenting goods 



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