THIRTY-THIRD BIENNIAL SESSION 
21J 
standardize their box. They did not want us to do that because they had 
not themselves agreed on what the standard box should be, believing that was 
a matter they should work out a little more fully before they came forward 
with a law fixing a standard box for apples. 
We of the East agreed to let the Western fruit growers fix the standard 
for the box apple territory, and they on their part agreed to let us fix our 
standard for the barrel apple territory. The box apple people agreed to 
•this the more readily because, as they claimed, our grades were not high 
enough to suit them. They wanted something much better than ours, — real, 
extra fancy with four XXXX’s and all that, something almost as superfine as 
the exalted ideas of the gentleman who has just spoken. 
And now they are ready with their box and their grades and because they 
came forward and very cordially and heartily and helpfully united with 
us in fixing our standard barrel, we greatly desire to help them get their 
standard box and grades. 
We are not especially concerned here with the size of the box, but as to 
the grades. Listen please, here is their proposed bill, and in it they have 
held to the grades established in the Shlzer law, word for word, item for 
item, except in one particular only, which is this: they do not provide for any 
fixed “limit of tolerance,” but they say in their bill that apples shall be “prac- 
tically” free from defects, insects, pests, etc., etc., and “reasonably” uniform 
in size. There is your “limit of tolerance.” “Practically” free from defects, 
“reasonably” uniform in size. Who shall say what is “practically,” what 
is “reasonably?” 
I submit, Mr. President, that the standard provided in the Sulzer law, 
our standard, if you please, is a better standard, a higher standard, a more 
easily understood standard than that proposed for the box apple territory. 
The gentleman complains about the “limit of tolerance,” and wants it 
stricken out because under his interpretation of the law a man can put a 
peck and a fifth of cider apples in each barrel and brand it “U. S. Standard.” 
With all due respect to the most honest fruit grower in the eastern section, 
and the western as well, I submit that it is a physical, a human impossibility 
to pack apples in barrels as we do in the east, and to guarantee every 
specimen in that barrel to be perfect. (Applause.) No man ever did it — 
no man ever can do it. (Applause.) We have got to have the “limit of 
tolerance” somewhere, whether we call it ten per cent or call it “practically 
free” from defect and “reasonably uniform” in size. 
The gentleman tells us we ought to have government inspection. So we 
ought, and we ought also to have an appropriation of five million a year to 
pay for it. Can we get it? — or any part of it? 
In the consideration of the Sulzer bill through two winters we were 
met at every turn with the query from members of Congress, “Will the bill 
require an appropriation?” And no one knows better than he that to have 
added an appropriation, however small, would have killed the bill. Certainly 
we need inspection, and there is a letter on file in the Dept, of Agriculture 
at this moment from fruit growers in my section asking for the appoint- 
ment of inspectors and offering to pay their salaries out of our own pockets. 
Has the gentleman done as much? 
