THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1107 
Maryland, Washington, I). C., West Virginia, Ken¬ 
tucky, Florida, Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, In¬ 
diana, Illinois, Kansas, Colorado, and British 
Cuiana. The package to this last address was over 
a week in transit, and arrived in excellent condi¬ 
tion. So far as I know all the packages went 
through in good order and some of our customers 
became enthusiastic parcel post fans. 
EXPRESS SHIPMENT.—llow about express? 
It will be found cheaper in sending the larger sized 
packages or in sending long distances to use the 
express companies. Another factor than cheapness 
sometimes enters into the calculations however. In 
one case i remember it would have been much cheap¬ 
er to have sent the packages by express but the re¬ 
cipients . lived in the country, the express stopped 
at the office but the parcel post brought it to the 
door. 
STYLE OF PACKING.—We used two sizes of 
corrugated board boxes, one 9x6x(> and the other 
12x0xi! inches, using what is termed the “one-piece 
slotted.” We tried various other styles and sizes, 
but fixed upon these two sizes and this style as the 
most satisfactory. While mathematically they hold 
about one-seventh and two-sevenths of a bushel, by 
weight they hold near enough to a half peck and 
peck for all practical purposes. There is more or 
less advantage in having a package correspond in 
size to some well-known measure. The box comes 
flat. On opening it out it forms a rectangle with the 
corners slotted. The ends are first folded in and 
then the sides, thus forming the bottom. A strip of 
glued tape, obtained from the firms selling the box¬ 
es. is then applied to hold the bottom together. The 
box is then turned over, filled and the ends and 
sides again folded over to form the top. This top 
cannot be sealed on account of the postal regula¬ 
tions but the box is securely tied, with or without 
wrapping, and is then ready for addressing. We 
FANCY 
fillMCS MLOEMELieiMl-'SnfIR 
;»{ f Ik- 
The Gift Packages Closed. Fig. 420. 
his comb, where it continued to grow. Different 
species of frogs have been grafted together when 
very young and have lived to see the day when they 
could hop, their hind legs representing one species, 
while their front legs represented another. 
Among the curious practices worked out in plant 
Gift Apples by Parcel Post. 
Some Suitable Small Packages. 
T HE UNDEVELOPED MARKET.—Perhaps this 
title does not sound as though it opened a dis¬ 
cussion on the distribution of the apple crop, but 
I believe that there is an undeveloped market that 
will repay us for a careful consideration of its pos¬ 
sibilities. Every bushel of apples which finds a 
hitherto unopened market relieves the pressure in 
Ihe usual channels of trade by just that much, and 
though it may seem that the demand for apples to 
use as presents would be a minor one, we some¬ 
times cannot tell what is small and what is large. 
Only the other day I visited a thousand-acre farm 
adjacent to a thriving city. I saw seven acres of 
vegetables and several more of fruit and flowers 
under glass; I saw blind ret s of the finest Guernseys 
in the United States or in the world, among them 
Murne Cowan, the reigning dairy queen; I saw the 
three handsome brick barns which housed them, 
one over 700 feet long, beautiful brick and stone 
buildings looking more like the buildings of some 
well-endowed university than like cattle barns; 
and all of these, buildings, herds, farm, or the foun¬ 
dations at least, were built out of five-cent boxes 
of matches, for it was the farm of the match king. 
THE GIFT PACKAGE.—For the past two years 
we have been studying the possibility and the feasi¬ 
bility of the parcel post in shipping fruit, and have 
found that for small packages this method is very 
satisfactory. Granted that it is perfectly practical 
to send fruit by parcel post, how about the feasi¬ 
bility of it? To what practical value can it be put by 
the fruit grower? It is a common thing to remember 
a friend’s birthday or to acknowledge some favor 
shown with a gift of a box of cigars, or if a lady, 
candy or flowers. The thought came to us that a 
small box of fancy apples attractively packed would 
cost no more than the cigars, candy or 
flowers, would just as fully express 
the sentiment to be conveyed, would 
please the eye perhaps as much as 
would the flowers, would tempt the 
appetite as well as cigar or candy and 
would possess a food value contained 
in none of these. 
CREATING THE DEMAND. — Is 
there a demand for such a package of 
fancy fruit? No, but one can be easi¬ 
ly created. Manufacturers do not wait 
for the consumer to demand an article, 
but they try to make him believe that 
it is a necessity, and thus create a 
demand. In the same way a demand 
for gift packages of fruit can be cre¬ 
ated, and it will not require the money 
that has been spent to introduce com¬ 
mercial propositions. Every fruit 
grower who is producing fancy fruit 
has friends who know it, and who go 
to him when they wish some extra nice fruit. They 
in turn have friends to whom they would be glad 
to send some of this fruit, if it were shown to them 
that this could be easily and simply done. In test¬ 
ing the matter out we placed in a show window in 
Wooster boxes of fancy apples and advertised that 
for a certain sum we would send a box of these ap- 
Advertising by Sample. Fig. 419. 
used a label on our boxes which had the usual 
blank for the address, and above it “Packed for” 
and a blank for the sender’s name, and “By” and 
our own address. Each apple was a perfect, well 
colored specimen. We advertised and sold only the 
choicest dessert varieties by this method. Each 
apple was carefully wrapped in a printed wrapper 
bearing our name and design. These wrappers we 
bought of a wholesale paper house at six cents per 
pound, getting them cut 10x10. The paper is a 
machine tissue and about the texture of cheap pa¬ 
per napkins. 
POSSIBILITIES.—It will not pay every grower 
to try to develop a market for fancy apples put up 
in gift packages. 'It will pay for many growers who 
are favorably situated to investigate this outlet for 
fancy fruit. To avail himself of this opportunity 
he must grow fancy apples of the choicest varieties, 
lie must learn how to pick, store, wrap and pack 
fancy apples, lie must have or gain an established 
reputation for good fruit and for honest methods. 
The giver is not going to inspect the box of ap¬ 
ples he sends, and hence the packer must be above 
reproach. In fact the whole idea is based on the 
proposition of making it as easy as possible for the 
purchaser and this throws all the responsibility on 
to the seller. Think what a temptation it will offer 
to the busy business man at his desk to know that 
all that is necessary is to write “Enclosed find my 
check. Send a box of apples to John Smith, New 
York City” or call up on the ’phone and say “Send 
John Sjnith a box of apples and call in for your 
money any time.” And yet without a perfect con¬ 
fidence in the man who puts up the fruit sales would 
be slow. While as I said before I do not look for 
any. large percent of the apple crop to be marketed 
in this manner I do believe that if the growers take 
advantage of the opportunities here suggested not 
only will the sales of fancy fruit be profitable but 
_ the hundreds and thousands of bushels 
* * thus finding a new market will affect 
the general apple market. 
Ohio Exp. Station. paul tiiayer. 
R. N.-Y.—We received samples of 
these apples in both sizes. They came 
in perfect condition. The pictures 
show how they were packed and how 
they looked when received here. It 
is a fine suggestion not only for send¬ 
ing fruit but for sending samples of 
fruit when a large sale is to be made. 
The Wonders of Grafting. 
T IIE picture shown at Fig 41S was 
taken from a little leaflet issued 
by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This 
little pamphlet is entitled “Grafts, 
Grafting and Graft-Hybrids,” and dis¬ 
cusses some of the remarkable things 
which have been done in grafting 
plant, and even animal life. - We are told in this 
pamphlet of work done in grafting moths. These 
are short-lived monsters with two heads or even a 
double set of wings. Brown rats have been grafted 
with tails from white rats, or even from mice, and 
angleworms with one head and two bodies or with 
one body and two heads. It is said that a rooster’s 
spur has been taken from his leg and grafted on to 
zone. The idea was that the donor’s duties were 
to simply pay the cost and furnish us with the 
name and address of the recipient. We packed and 
wrapped the box. addressed it and paid the postage. 
The sender was saved even the labor of licking the 
stamps. Ours is a small town and as I told you 
Potato, Tomato and Tobacco Graft-hybrids. Fig. 418. 
there is as yet no demand for a gift box of apples. 
Like all new ideas it took hold slowly. A few peo¬ 
ple became enthusiastic, others were somewhat in¬ 
terested. We did not sell any great percent of our 
crop by this method, but we did send apples all 
over Ohio and also to New York, Pennsylvania, 
The Gift Packages Open. Fig. 417. 
pies to any address in the State of Ohio. We had 
previously looked the matter up and found that 
practically all the State was inside the second zone, 
and thus in fixing our flat rate we simply added to 
the cost of the apples and package the postage on 
a box of average weight to points in the second 
