THIRTY-THIRD BIENNIAL SESSION 
21 1 
was this size barrel used, that the slack cooperage people did not make or 
advertise a barrel stave suitable for packing apples of any other size. 
This New York standard barrel was one inch shorter than the so called 
Viriginia standard, but exactly the same size in every other respect, — the 
New York barrel holding one hundred quarts, and the Virginia barrel one 
hundred and four quarts. 
It became necessary to secure the co-operation of the Bureau of Stand- 
ards at Washington, because the right to establish standard weights and 
measures rests solely with Congress, the Constitution of the United States 
specifically reserving to Congress the right to fix standard weights and 
measures for the whole country. In the absence of any action by Congress 
fixing a standard of weight or measure, any state may, if it chose, fix such a 
standard for itself within its own borders, but once Congress chooses to act 
the standard fixed by that body must prevail throughout the country, both 
in inter and intra state traffic. Therefore, in order to get the standard 
barrel we had to get the co-operation of the bureau of Standards in Washing- 
ton. 
I have a letter from the Bureau positively declining to recommend any 
other standard than that of the so-called New York standard barrel, not be- 
cause it was a New York standard, but because the Bureau had already re- 
commended that standard for New York and other states, and because as 
I have before stated the New York barrel contained three full bushels, and 
obviously there could not be two or more legal U. S. Standards in use. I 
would have been glad to have had a smaller package, but, recognizing the fact 
that it was impossible to get any other, I and my fellow fruit growers joined 
in the recommendation of the committee appointed by the Eastern Fruit 
Growers* Association and the International Shippers’ Association to se- 
cure the only standard possible to obtain; so much for the size of the barrel. 
First Legal Standard Food Product. 
Now as to the grading of the fruit, do you gentlemen realize that the 
fruit growers, through their representatives, and by co-operation with the 
shippers, have been responsible for the very first successful attempt on the 
part of the national government to standardize a food product? We have 
our food and drugs act, it is true; but that act does not define any standard 
of purity, and that is why it is so difficult of enforcement. The law does 
not specify what is a pure food and what is not. In this particular, however, 
fruit growers and shippers go beyond any effort heretofore made to estab- 
lish a legal standard, and define in terms what shall constitute that standard. 
The only trouble that seems to rest in the minds of some gentlemen, 
about this standard, is the ten per cent “limit of tolerance.” I do not put 
the same interpretation upon that “limit of tolerance” that has been put upon 
it by the gentleman who preceded me. Because there is a “limit of tolerance” 
provided in the law does not mean, in my judgment, that a man is authorized 
to pack ninety per cent of good sound apples, and then put in ten per cent 
of rotten apples or cider apples. It is true, necessarily true, that in the 
packing some bad apples may get into the barrel. Therefore, we NEED a 
limit of toleration. 
