146 



THE FRUIT EXCHANGES. 



you to do this, a three wire trellis is better than two, 

 and a four wire better than three. 



The first thing to do for the harvest is to be ready. 

 Have your baskets all on hand and good help engaged 

 before the first cluster ripens. So small a matter as not 

 having baskets when needed cost this county the past 

 season a good many thousand dollars. Picking and pack- 

 ing grapes is the most healthful and delightful out-door 

 and in-door work known to this latitude. Invalids for- 

 get their ailments, the weak become strong, the lean 

 grow fat. Indeed, what can be nicer than putting up 

 the purple bloomed Concords, the transparently beauti- 

 ful Niagaras, the golden Pocklingtons, the Wyoming 

 Red, Brighton, Delaware and Catawba, blushing with 

 their light or dark shades of red ? Women are the best 

 help in the grape harvest. Their gentle touch just suits 

 the need in handling a fruit exceedingly susceptible to 

 injury. 



Would there were no need of speaking of honesty 

 and conscientious work in the packing room ! The man 

 who chuckles at the idea that he has palmed off a lot of 

 seven and one-half pound baskets at nine pound weight 

 and price, is not only dishonest, but actually a danger- 

 ous member of the grape-growing community. In build- 

 ing up a local reputation we all stand or fall together ; 

 the trickery of one strikes a blow at the good name of 

 all. We have here an industry of too grea't financial 

 importance to permit the slightest swerving from straight- 

 forward, honest methods. 



What shall we do with our refuse grapes ? Don't 

 have any refuse grapes. Just make the discovery before 



you go one step further that it don't pay to raise grapes 

 for vinegar. How do refuse grapes come ? From two 

 sources, both inexcusable and both easily remedied. 

 The first is from overproduction and calls for closer 

 pruning. The second is from bringing into the vineyard 

 the manners and roughness of the coal yard, or from 

 careless handling when first picked. Of course, in the 

 last half of the season there will daily accumulate some 

 cracked berries, say about one pound in one hundred. 

 But if in twenty tons you have over 200 pounds of 

 cracked or refuse grapes, or one-half of one per cent., 

 you are not up with the practice of the best vineyardists. 



The great bulk of the grapes must necessarily be sold 

 through the medium of a shipping association. There 

 are already four in the county, shipping seventy cars 

 and upwards each. In the large markets the consump- 

 tion increases quite as fast as the increase of production 

 here. "The rich," said a western city dealer, "buy 

 one basket for three meals, the middle classes buy one 

 basket for two meals, and poor people buy two baskets 

 for one meal !" A St. Louis dealer quotes as a new 

 experience that many families must have a basket every 

 morning for breakfast. "When nine pound baskets," 

 said he, "can be sold for twenty-five cents to thirty 

 cents the demand is practically unlimited." It is esti- 

 mated that in the seven westernmost counties of New 

 York state, composing the eighth judicial district, with 

 comparatively small increase in population, the con- 

 sumption of grapes from 1890 to 1880 has increased 

 ten-fold. 



Chaittauqiia Co., N. Y. S. S. Crissey. 



THE FRUIT EXCHANGES. 



SKETCHES AND OPINIONS OF REPRESENTATIVE ORGANIZATIONS. 



HE FRUIT exchange is an im- 

 portant organization. It has 

 solved many o f the vexed 

 questions of transportation, 

 packing and marketing. Its 

 objects are to instruct grow- 

 ers in the packing and hand- 

 ling of fruit, to adjust trans- 

 portation charges and com- 

 missions, and to discover the best markets for cer- 

 tain fruits. Some of the exchanges have handled 

 these great questions with skill, and it is not strange 

 that some have failed. The successes prove that 

 the enterprise is capable of good results, while the 

 failures only show that we have not yet arrived at 

 the best methods of organization for all cases. 

 The exchange must meet the particular wants of 

 the community for which it stands, and it must seek 

 in every way to allay and overcome prejudices. In 

 some cases, the local horticultural society can look 



after the business of shipping and selling by simply 

 advising its members, while in others a definite ex- 

 change organization must be formed ; or it may be 

 necessary to organize a stock company under the 

 laws of the state. But in whatever form it may 

 appear, the question of fruit exchanges is an all- 

 important one, and the following statements, gath- 

 ered from many reliable sources, must contribute to 

 its solution. 



NEW JERSEY EXPERIENCES. 



The New Jersey Fruit Exchange has been one 

 of the most successful in the country. It was organ- 

 ized in th-e fall of 1886. This organization started 

 by issuing one hundred shares of stock at a par value of 

 twenty-five dollars per share. An exchange building 

 was put up at Flemington, our county seat, where we 

 have excellent railroad facilities, and opened for the 

 sale of fruit on the 31st day of August, 1887, and while 

 many doubted, others were confident of success. Buy- 

 ers were present from New Haven, Hartford, Albany, 



