198 
AMERICAN POMOEOGICAE SOCIETY 
which we live. Men have found that they alone pay; that is, all men ex- 
cept apple men. We still continue to wallow in the mire of discredited 
practices and apparently labor year by year to destroy the confidence that 
strives to exist. The wonder to me is that the apple has so many friends, 
and not that it does not have more. I am reminded of the story told by Mr. 
W. B. Geroe of Toledo, Ohio. There was a farmer who never seemed able 
to accomplish anything. He was always just starting to plow when his 
neighbors were planting, and he would start to plant when the others’ crops 
were up. The same methods prevailed in the harvest. Most of the time 
he was without any crops, but once in a while, through sheer luck, he would 
get a tremendous yield. His neighbors could not understand and they said 
to him one day: “John, how do you account for some of these good crops 
you get?” “Well,,” replied John, “I don’t account for it; I guess it’s just the 
tenderness of hell." Now you know why the apple gets along as well as 
it does. 
But to return to the subject: There is no use wasting time discussing 
theoretical methods of pack, the facing, tiering, wrapping and handling, 
how tight the barrel should be or the proper bulge on a box. These things 
in comparison with the real need are but incidental. The real meat of the 
matter lies much deeper. To my mind the great principle underlying the 
essentials of packing is that of giving the “square deal." On that alone 
can confidence be established and maintained, and if it be a real desire to 
give a square deal, then the incidentals will follow naturally. Therefore, 
with this principle in mind, let us examine conditions and see where we 
shall come out. 
Examples of the evils which have hedged us with uncertainty, danger 
and loss might be multiplied indefinitely. Two alone will suffice, and your 
experience will supply the rest. 
You remember the fall of 1907, when there was a fair crop of apples in 
this country of exceedingly poor quality and which was either purchased 
or held back by the producer at an exceedingly high price for a most 
wretched pack. The consumer was fooled and cheated for a little time only. 
He stopped buying and then, with inevitable disaster apparent, it was sought 
to win him back by cutting out the cider apples and junk and reducing the 
price fifty to seventy-five per cent under even original cost, but to no avail. 
People resent being imposed upon. To cheat them is to arouse a bitter and 
justifiable hatred. When the consumer places on the counter good money, 
worth one hundred cents on the dollar, he has a right to expect in return a ? 
commodity worth one hundred cents on the dollar. And if he does not get 
it, there is trouble. He settles these questions beyond our poor power to 
change. He settles them so effectually that business enterprises are ruined, 
markets destroyed and enormous losses created. He settled the question 
that year until it became almost impossible to force the sale of apples at 
any price. Housewives would come into the store and refuse to even look 
at or consider them. Retailers were met with the statement, “I don’t want 
to even hear the word apple. I am through with them.” And this thing 
went on up and down the land until there was no market and the losses 
mounted into the millions. In western New York alone they amounted 
