CONFEKENCE ON FRUIT GROWING. 



13 



the extent expected. Many have stencilled or branded their names, the 

 sorts and grade on the boxes or barrels, and this has perhaps served the 

 same purpose. Well-known good packers' boxes and barrels have in 

 many cases not been opened by the salesmen when selling, the name 

 alone being sufficient to sell them at best prices. 



In conclusion I would like to sum up the whole matter from the 

 several points of view of all interested in fruit growing : 



(1) The User. — The private buyer of all kinds of fruit, when ordering 

 certain sizes of Apples in certain kinds of standard packages, knows exactly 

 what he is getting. The more a standard of non-returnable package is 

 adopted and the better it is known, the more certain it is that the private 

 user will appreciate and support it ; uncertainty as to sizes, grades, and 

 the trouble of returning empties are all inimical to confidence between 

 the buyer and the seller. 



(2) The Retailer. — Fruit in non-returnable boxes and barrels saves 

 time ; they can be put in the shop front on view at once ; all trouble of 

 returning empties is avoided, and sales are often larger, customers taking 

 "original packages " instead of single pounds of sorts that please the eye. 

 Retail fruit shops are rendered much more attractive by the display of 

 fruit unbruised and sound in original packages. 



(3) The Salesman or middleman prefers foreign fruit very often 

 because, especially in the case of Apples, he has no trouble nor expense 

 with "empties " ; his sympathies are bound up with non-returnable and 

 uniform packages and even grading, and always must be. Sound fruit, 

 well graded, in clean non-returnable and not charged packages, must assist 

 his business enormously. 



(4) The Carriers — railways more especially — do not want to be 

 bothered with " empties " ; they carry them at a loss, and welcome fruit 

 in new sound boxes or barrels which pack more closely and tightly than 

 hampers. They would always prefer to carry high-class, well-graded 

 fruit, rather than low-class, poor fruit. The outcry against high railway 

 rates loses its force, or a great part of it, in the case of expensive or high- 

 priced fruit because the grower feels it less, whereas on fruit which " hardly 

 pays for carriage " any rate charged must appear to the grower as excessive. 



(5) The Grower who grades his fruit carefully, who packs it neatly 

 in non-returnable packages, is conforming to the trend of the times ; he 

 secures the goodwill of the user, pleases the retailer, is supported by the 

 salesman, and is therefore more likely to be successful in his work. It 

 must not be understood that all the fruit-growers in Ireland have adopted 

 all or indeed any of the recommendations that have been made in this 

 pamphlet, or that if similar recommendations were made in England 

 they would be adopted to any great extent at once. But it may be 

 taken as certain that in these proposals a standard has been set 

 before all growers. Wherever this standard has been tried it is believed 

 to have been productive of benefit to all concerned. Other countries — 

 America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — have standards to which 

 the growers in those countries adhere, for export at any rate. The result 

 is co-ordination, uniformity, and mutual understanding between grower 

 and user of fruit. If a standard of grades and packages could be once 

 established throughout the United Kingdom, the fruit industry would 



