1908. 
471 
THE APPLE PACKING BUSINESS. 
“Put Your Name On Your Job.” 
I see you have an engraving of J. M. McCoach & 
Co. on page 418, made from a paper circle that covers 
the face of a barrel of apples packed by them. I have 
done considerable business with them, and know 
them personally, and when they buy apples they have 
men to see that they are packed and graded and 
labeled, so they will know what the barrels contain, 
and the customers may also learn what marks to 
go by when ordering. Apples from some orchards 
arc better than from others, or from some trees 
better than from others, and they designate them by 
placing an X, XX, XXX, XXXX or XXXXX in ad¬ 
dition to the name of grower or packer and the 
variety of fruit. Because the firm is located in West 
Virginia is no reason to believe the fruit was grown 
in that State. They are close to one of the best 
fruit regions of southern Ohio, and much of their 
fruit comes from the Ohio hills near by, but they buy 
in Virginia, New York and even in the West. As to 
the price they sell apples for, nothing was said by 
Mr. Broadfoot, of X T orth Carolina, about that. It has 
been the custom to charge as much as $1 or even $2 
above the prices ruling in Cincinnati or other markets 
for what has been sold as good stock coming from 
other parts of the country. They sell them and 
meet competitors by having fruit graded and packed 
better than the others, and the name is a guarantee 
of the pack and the company’s business methods. 
Without wishing to get in an adver¬ 
tisement for myself, I may say that I 
and my father before me, pack our 
apples and stamp or stencil the name of 
the grower, the address, the variety and 
specify the grade on the head of the 
barrel, and place a paper circle against 
the inside of the head. For example, on 
the head of the barrel it is stamped in 
large blue letters, the very best grade, 
“Fancy Rome Beauty Grown and 
Packed by U. T. Cox” (with address). 
A smaller size is stamped in red and the 
word “Choice” is substituted for 
“Fancy.” Another grade is stamped in 
black. The paper has the same adver¬ 
tisement printed in large letters so it can 
be seen as soon as the barrel is open, 
and the fruit looks cleaner and brighter 
because of it. In fact it almost makes 
them look better than they really are. 
I never knew of but one firm wanting a 
car of them and requesting the name to 
be scratched off. Mr. McCoach told me 
last year that one order came that way, 
and he wired back that if they wanted 
the name taken off they could do so, 
but he wouldn’t. When one has a 
large quantity of one kind it will be 
best to have the name of variety printed 
on the paper, but the few barrels of odd 
varieties are not so labeled except it is 
written on the head, and it may be on 
the paper also. By all means the pack¬ 
age should bear the mark of the grower, 
or packer if the buyer does the packing. 
When all the real good apples are so marked and 
guaranteed the retail trade and the consumers will 
learn to buy according to the marks when known, 
and all not so marked will have to go by guess. 
Ohio. u. t. cox. 
Those “Choice New York Baldwins.” 
There is more in that apple question than has been 
touched upon yet in The R. N.-Y. In the first place, 
as long as the closed barrel is the package used 
there will be more or less complaint from dishonest 
packing. With the slatted bushel box, the fruit show¬ 
ing from all of its four sides, this is mostly elimi¬ 
nated. However, as the practice is coming to be in 
the larger apple-growing sections of the West, the 
fruit packed and branded by a well-organized fruit 
growers’ union is the best guarantee of quality. Such 
a box of fruit, well-graded as to size and perfection 
of form and color, means a high-priced apple. It 
means, in most apple-growing regions, the throwing 
out of 50 per cent of the crop, and which must be 
consigned to the cannery and cider-mill, or as a waste 
product. Of course with proper thinning on the 
tree, exemption from the Codling moth, etc., the 
proportion will not be so great. The fact is fully 
demonstrated out here in the West that water in 
liberal supply to the orchard in midsummer, when the 
soil in its natural condition is usually in a dry powder 
form, is the key that unlocks nature’s stores. Give 
the tree access to the soil elements in a soluble form, 
when the same is needed to bring the fruit to a full 
perfection of form and color, and it will do it. The 
irrigated orchards will give a crop 75 to 90 per cent 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
perfect, or rather what is known as fancy fruit, and 
no other orchards will do it, out here in this State or 
elsewhere that I know of. Clean cultivation of the 
orchard soil will only result in increased size of the 
fruit that without water will have less color than 
if produced in a sod-bound orchard. But bring the 
soil early in August to a soft mud condition and not 
the surface alone, but all through, and an apple that 
is usually of a dingy brown color will become blood 
red. The mineral elements needed in the transfor¬ 
mation, and usua’ly abundant in the land, seem to 
be almost wholy inert in a dry powder condition. 
Washington. j. f. cass. 
BANANAS IN FLORIDA. 
The inquiry of G. E. C., page 403, relative to the 
culture of bananas in Florida, recalls memories of the 
10 happiest years of my life, spent among the semi- 
tropical groves and gardens of Orange County, 
Florida. Conditions may have changed since then, 
but a few words as to my own experience with 
bananas may suggest ideas to your correspondent. 
The banana is one of the easiest fruits grown, where 
the conditions are favorable, as it has practically no 
insect enemy, and grows with a rapidity almost un¬ 
paralleled in the vegetable kingdom. The Spring of 
1880 found us on a homestead near Lake Apopka, in 
Orange County. Along with our oranges we decided 
to try an acre or so of bananas, and went to a neigh¬ 
bor who had had his plants frozen the Winter before, 
and was willing to give them away to get rid of them. 
The blackened, leafless stumps, some of them eight 
feet high and a foot thick at the base, and full of ill¬ 
smelling, fermenting juices from the destructive work 
of the frost, were not pleasant to look at or handle, 
but they were still sound at the heart, and we carried 
several wagon loads of them home and set them out, 
six feet apart each way, on a plowed piece of rich 
land near an old stable, where the pine land joined 
the hammock or hardwood land. A couple of plow- 
ings was all the attention they received. Within a 
month or two the plantation was a scene of tropical 
beauty, the land completely shaded by the long, droop¬ 
ing, banner-like leaves of the banana plants, some of 
which were over 10 feet high, and soon the purple 
fruit-buds, big as cocoanuts, appeared at the top of 
the tallest stalks. As the big buds turned and hung 
downward, the clasping scales, one after another 
lifted, revealing the rows of pearly-pink blossoms be¬ 
neath, each of which represented a banana-to-be. The 
honey in these flowers cannot be reached by insects, 
but seems to be preserved for the development of the 
fruit alone. I have seen my father walking along the 
green overhung alleys of banana stalks in the morn¬ 
ing, gathering the big blossoms and striking them on 
the edge of a saucer, which threw out the honey, and 
soon half-filled the vessel with a sort of insipid syrup. 
And how those plants did grow! On damp, hot 
nights, the developing leaves pushed outward with a 
gentle, crackling sound that was distinctly audible 
throughout the little plantation. Yes, we could act¬ 
ually hear those banana plants grow. The young 
stalks would rise several inches a day. By Autumn 
there were many bunches of ripe fruit, which we 
took to Orlando and readily exchanged for househo'd 
supplies, and some of the stalks were twice as tall as 
a man, and their beautiful drooping leaves eight or 
ten feet in length. Only one head of bananas is pro¬ 
duced on a stalk, which, after it has done its duty, 
soon dies back and makes room for the half-dozen 
or more young plants starting up around it. The 
plant usually bears fruit at the age of 18 months. 
These bananas were finally destroyed by frost. We 
never planted so many of them any more, but always 
kept a few around the house for ornament and for 
home use. Importations from the West Indies and 
Central America have rendered Florida banana 
unprofitable. 
W e mostly raised the ordinary “horse” banana, the 
fruit of which is shorter and thicker than the kind 
ordinarily known to commerce, and the flavor is a little 
coarser, but it is very good and wholesome. We had 
a smaller, spicy sort known as the “fig” banana, which 
was very fine. There were also the “Lady Finger,” 
“Dacca,” and “Cavendish” varieties. The latter was 
of stocky growth, with crimson splotches on the 
leaves, quite prolific and fine flavored, and it was said 
that the heads of fruit sometimes reached the ground 
and had to be accommodated by digging a hole be¬ 
neath to allow them to develop. The banana is 
propagated by stolons or suckers which are produced 
freely around the parent stem. It requires the richest 
soil and plenty of moisture, but the drainage must be 
good, and the hotter the weather the better for it. 
Frost is its great enemy, and the plant is about as 
tender as the tomato. For that reason 
its culture cannot attain much commer¬ 
cial importance outside of the tropical 
regions. However, one may easily raise 
enough of the fruit for his own use in 
the rich and sheltered portions of 
Orange County, Florida, and particularly 
on the hammock lands of the South 
Apopka section. Parties have suc¬ 
ceeded in bringing banana plants 
through the Winter in Tennessee and 
getting them to fruit there by keeping 
them in a pit six or eight feet deep 
covered with planks during the cold 
weather. One should never try to keep 
banana plants in a horizontal position, 
as the irresistible inclination of the inner 
bud to grow upward will cause it to 
burst and spoil the trunk before the 
Winter is over. We had that experience 
with a plant in Washington, D. C., which 
we tried to keep in a cellar. It is one 
of the most ornamental of plants and 
looks finely in grounds wherever it can 
be kept over Winter. 
Arkansas. l. s. perkins. 
WILL VETCH SMOTHER QUACK 
GRASS? 
Being somewhat interested in vetch, 
reading your article on page 398 has 
aroused my curiosity more and more, 
until I have decided to make inquiry as 
to what you think of vetch as 
an exterminator of quack or joint 
grass. A western seedsman advertises 
superior Sand vetch, which he claims is a very rapid 
growing plant. Is vetch a plant hard to get rid of, 
like mustard or quack grass? Can I plow a bed of 
quack in May and seed to vetch, and get a good stand, 
and do you think that vetch will grow more rapidly 
than quack? If what this seedsman says of it would 
prove itself in our climate and soil, I think it will 
not only choke out quack, but also be of great benefit 
to plow under, as I do not care so much for the hay 
as I do to rid the farm of quack grass. Our farm 
is rolling, and of rich sand loam. o. c. 
Stanley, N. Y. 
R. N.-Y.—We call for experience from farmers. 
Our own seeding of vetch is a failure. The only ob¬ 
jection we have heard stated against vetch is that on 
grain farms the seeds are carried about and mix with 
the grain, so that it is hard to separate them. 
That plan of killing the scale on fruit trees by 
painting the trunk with carbolic acid bobs up again. 
This time a Philadelphia judge is given as authority. 
He may be high legal authority, but he should stick 
to the scales of justice. The best authorities we can 
find insist that there is nothing in this plan of paint¬ 
ing the tree with carbolic acid. The theory is that 
the sap will absorb the acid and carry it into the 
circulation of the tree. The scale get it as they 
suck the juice and are killed! There is no evidence 
to show that the acid is carried in this way, and if 
it were true it would be so much diluted by the time 
it got to the leaf that it would not harm anything. 
Our advice is to drop carbolic acid and stick to the 
regular spray materials. 
A 39-CENT TOMATO CLUSTER. REDUCED IN SIZE. Fig. 215. 
See Ruralisms, Page 474. 
. 
