FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
73 
ago by Mr. Temple, and believing it was a 
good idea, I wrote to several prominent 
packers asking them to be prepared to 
discuss the question. I do not know that 
you care to take any action in this matter, 
but I believe it would be an excellent time 
just now to take the discussion up. I 
would like to know, Mr. Skinner, whether 
you are ready to take up that discussion. 
Mr. Skinner: I expected to come in 
on the tail end of it. I got your letter, 
all right. 
Prof. Hume: Mr. Hart, can’t you 
start it off? 
Mr. Hart: I have not had time to 
make any preparation for taking up this 
subject, but I have had some years of ex¬ 
perience along those lines, and if I can 
offer any suggestions that may be valu¬ 
able, I will be pleased to do so. 
In starting, I want to say that grading 
has far more to do with prices in the mar¬ 
ket than the ordinary shippers imagine. 
You can take inferior fruit, and grade it 
properly, and get prices that will surprise 
you. Take russets, for instance. While 
I have not shipped a russet this year that 
had rust from the rust mite (I have not 
seen one in my crop), I have shipped rus¬ 
sets this year from different causes; that 
is, from mellanose. I am peculiarly 
troubled with that disease. 
Now, I could have put those all into 
one grade and they would have brought 
the price that the worst of them would 
have brought alone, perhaps. I divided 
these into two grades; one grade of rus¬ 
sets were fine to look at, solid and good 
to eat, and they brought good prices— 
prices that surprised me, really, consider¬ 
ing the quality of the fruit. I put the 
rest of these russets into another grade, 
and think I got as much for them as I 
would for the whole if they had not been 
divided. 
Take the brights. You divide out those 
that are without blemish—not the abso¬ 
lutely perfect fruit, because you cannot on 
a commercial scale grade absolutely a per¬ 
fect grade, but those that, when you hold 
them off at a distance, or among other or¬ 
anges, look perfect, without dark, unsight¬ 
ly blemishes on them. For such fruit as 
that, you can get almost any price, if yoit 
put it in the right line; that is, the mil¬ 
lionaire trade, the people who appreciate 
a good fruit, and the millionaire trade is 
a good trade. 
The man who pays for them seldom 
buys them himself, but he instructs his 
butler to “buy the best.” They will not 
say anything about prices, and for that 
reason it is good trade. I make that 
fancy grade. Then I make another grade 
that is not so beautiful, but is not badly 
blemished, a grade that looks good and 
has no black, deep marks, nothing that 
makes it look rough and cheap; that is 
my Number One grade. The rest are the 
Number Two, except the culls, which I 
do not ship at all only as culls to near-by 
markets. 
Mr. Temple, in his paper, advocated 
giving the different grades a different 
brand, and I am inclined to believe that 
is a good idea. I shall not adopt the idea, 
however. For over thirty years I have 
been shipping fancies, No. i and No. 2, 
brights, and my fruit is known in the 
markets where it goes, so I do not think 
it would pay me to change my method 
now. I think I would have a brand for 
each different grade, and perhaps some 
different color so that they could be recog¬ 
nized at a distance. 
The teaching of your help to grade 
