THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
1249 
How Auction Apples are Handled. 
Shippers will be interested to know just how their 
apples are handled in the auction market. When a 
manifest is sent with the shipment as it should be, 
a catalogue is made up of all the shipments for the 
day. The pages of this catalogue are about 5x14 inch¬ 
es, and the number of pages depends of course on the 
gross amount of the offering for the day. These cat¬ 
alogues are then distributed to the buyers of apples. 
They examine the fruit or the samples as the case may 
be, and make private notes on the catalogues for their 
own benefit. When the sale begins the auctioneer has 
his catalogues, and each buyer has one; and the bids 
are made for the apples represented on one line at a 
time. Sometimes one buyer takes all the line and 
sometimes he takes less, and the balance is again of¬ 
fered until all are sold. Then the next line is offered. 
Following is a copy of page 3 and a part of page 2 of 
a catalogue for one day last week : 
3 
Lines. Marks. 
Description. 
B. & A. CAR 38665 
GHENT, N. Y. 
DISCHARGED ON TIER 31, 
N. R. 
APPLES 
11 
3 in Grade A 
24 Barrels McIntosh.$4.15 
12 
2% in Grade A 
58 . 3.65 
13 
2 % in Grade A 
39 . 3.30 
14 
2 Vi in Grade A 
5 . 2.20 
15 
3 in Grade A 
1 R I Greenings. 2.75 
16 
2 % in Grade A 
27 . 2.60 
17 
2% in Grade A 
25 . 2.30 
18 
2Vi in Grade A 
4 . 2.05 
19 
3 in Grade A 
4 . 2.85 
20 
2% in Grade A 
4 . 2.15 
21 
2*4 in Grade A 
2 . 2.05 
22 
2Vi in Grade A 
1 . 2.05 
2 
Lines. Marks. 
Description. 
ALL IN STORE 
55 
Grade A2y 2 in 
8 bbLs. McIntosh .$4.20 
A 
4 Red McIntosh. 4.15 
For the information of shippers, the price realized 
at the sale is also given for the various lines. On line 
55, page 2, it will be noted that in an offering of 12 
barrels, eight sold for $4.20 and four for $4.15. In the 
sales of McIntosh from line 11 to 14, we get an idea 
of the influence of size on price. 
The auction may not always get the grower the 
price he expects, in some conditions the price may be 
low. Sometimes it is high; but in our experience so 
far the buyers gauge the value very accurately on the 
basis of quality and features that make the fruit at¬ 
tractive to consumers. The demand will be good one 
day and poor another. One day the supply will be 
full, and another day scarce. All these conditions 
affect prices good or bad; whether the goods are sold 
at private or public sale. When goods are scarce the 
prices will be higher at the auction than at private 
sale. When there is a surplus, the goods will move 
promptly, and with a generally better price than the 
average of private sales. 
New York buyers prefer New York apples in bar¬ 
rels. The auction has sold the same quality of apples 
in barrels at better prices than the same quality in 
baskets. The fruit is slightly bruised by the flexible 
basket, and while the skin may not be broken, the next 
day the apple discolors, and its selling quality to the 
housewife is lessened. It pays to give the buyers 
what they want. 
The Department is now ready to sell fruits and farm 
food products of all kinds when shipped in contain¬ 
ers. It has no facilities as yet to handle produce in 
bulk. Growers are planning to grade potatoes and 
ship them in peck, bushel and three-bushel sacks. The 
peck bag will prove a popular package for city people, 
and should increase the consumption and price of New 
York State potatoes. 
Facts and Figures About Apples. 
Mr. A. II. Haight of Millbrook, N. Y., has had an 
experience in the sale of his orchard this year that 
makes him an advocate of the work undertaken by the 
Department of Foods and Markets. The week before 
the first auction sale at Red Hook, he sold his orchard 
to a local buyer at $1.40 a barrel for A and B grades. 
Mr. Haight contracted to pick the apples and lay them 
on the ground and deliver at depot. The buyer fur¬ 
nished the barrels and packed. The day after the Red 
Hook Sale the local buyer sold them to Mr. Piowaty of 
Chicago for an advanced price, known only to the 
dealers themselves. The orchard runs largely to Bald¬ 
win, Greening, McIntosh and Spy. The fruit was 
second to none in the State. The orchard will run 90 
per cent, of fancy and A grade fruit. Mr. Haight was 
not posted on the value of apples for this season at 
the time he sold. To put it in his own language, when 
he made a price to the buyer, “It was like taking a 
shot in the dark.” He certainly should have had $1 
a barrel more. He will pick 3.000 barrels; and that 
means that the two dealers will clear up '$3,000 be¬ 
tween them in addition to their legitimate profit. The 
apples will go to Houghton, Michigan, for the copper 
miners. 
The Department of Foods and Markets cannot have 
the support and friendship of Mr. Haight as a grower 
and of the dealers at the same time. If this system 
of legalized piracy is to be replaced by a business 
method of selling apples, the growers must get behind 
the business system and help push. The dealers cannot 
be expected to push in that direction. 
Within a month of the date of Mr. Haight’s sale, the 
Department sold McIntosh apples for ,T. II. Boyce, one 
of Mr. Haight’s near neighbors, at $4.15 and $4.20 pet- 
barrel. This was fancy fruit carefully graded and 
properly packed. It was just as good as, but no better 
than Mr. Haight’s fruit of the same variety. 
Fruit Auction at the “ Movies.” 
At the Lancaster County (Pa.) fair I went into 
a local motion picture theatre and saw an interesting 
scene of one of your first New York apple auctions, 
I think at Red Hook. There were orchard views show¬ 
ing pickers at work, also a grading machine in opera¬ 
tion. I noticed the auctioneer was on the job, but the 
buyers appeared indifferent to his wiles. Suppose they 
were the same bunch Mr. Dillon paid his respects to. 
If either the Hope Farm Man or Mr. Dillon were 
present you were not marked with the usual X denoting 
the location of the exalted. There were two there, how¬ 
ever, who did not need the X mark to make them 
conspicuous. The camera evidently was a few feet 
to the rear of two ladies whose faces I should have 
liked to see. Oft times the fair sex has been accused 
of vanity, curiosity, a desire to be seen, and have others 
see them at their best. By their movements I could 
almost positively assert they had the curiosity and de¬ 
sire to turn around, and several times thought they 
would, though in the end determination overcame de¬ 
sire, and the backs are traveling over the United States. 
Many of the men could not resist and turned as Lot’s 
wife of old, but those two missed an audience of mil¬ 
lions. That Market Department is good business and 
just what every State in America needs. I hope it 
may thrive and prosper. e. j. weaver. 
Pennsylvania. 
The Business of “Licking a Postage 
Stamp.” 
[As we advocate that business whenever it seems ne¬ 
cessary. the following example of how to do it will be in 
order. This is a letter sent to a trade publication in New 
York City, and in its way is a model, dignified, straight¬ 
forward and fair. This sort of thing makes the post¬ 
age stamp carry the sterling qualities of the man whose 
picture adorns the stamp!] 
At the top of your publication that I have received 
for several years is this statement: 
“Devoted to the interests of Commercial Growers, 
Packers and Shippers of Fruits, Vegetables, Butter, 
Eggs, Poultry and Produce Generally.” 
In your issue of September 25th are two articles 
that, in my opinion, are not at all in line with the 
above statement. I refer to the articles criticizing the 
apple and peach auctions held under the direction of 
the newly established Department of Foods and Mar¬ 
kets of New York State. 
There is no doubt that the bill establishing this De¬ 
partment was put through under the direction of the 
New York State farmers and if you were truly devoted 
to their interests it would seem to me that you would 
do your best to give the new law a fair trial instead 
of devoting so much space to condemning the results 
of their efforts. It appears as though you thought 
to get more patronage from your commission house ad¬ 
vertisers by censuring a law that interferes with their 
profits in some instances. Of course this may not 
be so, but I cannot see where you are in any way 
assisting the growers by objecting to a method of mar¬ 
keting that they desire to try. As you well know, the 
old method has been taken advantage of by un¬ 
scrupulous dealers to pay an unfair price to the grow- 
ers, and I should think you would be the one to wel¬ 
come open and fair bidding, because you are “devoted 
to the interests of the growers” and the commission 
man who is honest certainly cannot suffer by buying 
in open competition, and according to your own state¬ 
ments is really profiting thereby. You certainly should 
realize that the ultimate success of the dealers of New 
York, to which you really seem to be devoted, lies in 
the success of the farmers and other growers and only 
as they work together and get a mutual understanding 
and common consideration will both get the greatest 
financial results. 
Such articles as yours arouse the antagonism of the 
farmers against the commission houses and make the 
farmers feel that they will stand some considerable 
losses before they will longer allow themselves to be 
dictated to by their real agents the dealers. I do 
not know that the commission men get unfair profits 
in many eases, I have had the best of results with 
mine in New York and elsewhere, and the honest deal¬ 
er certainly does not need such articles as yours and 
I believe they hurt his trade. In the long run you 
are really opposing the interests of the dealers and 
those of the growers that you claim to have so much 
at heart. 
I had thought of stopping my subscription but I 
thought I might as well continue it, and see how long 
it would take you to see the handwriting on the wall, 
and finally get down to actually supporting the people 
that in the end make your publication profitable. 
As The Rural New-Yorker has no doubt seen your 
articles and you would therefore doubtless like to have 
them see my letter to you, I am sending them a copy of 
this. l. G. WAITE. 
Rhode Island. 
Food Sent to the Dump. 
I find the following clipping in the Baltimore Sun : 
PEACHES TO GARBAGE HEAPS. 
Whole Carloads Carried There Because of Chicago 
Glut. 
Chicago, Sept. 16.—Entire carloads of peaches from 
neighboring States have been carted off to garbage 
heaps, a total loss to the shippers and producers, be¬ 
cause no market could be found for them, according to 
reports of commission merchants today. 
Instead of receiving profits they expected the grow¬ 
ers were called on to pay the freight and cartage 
charges on their abandoned consignments. 
I do not suppose that any human being can be found 
who would believe that literally no market could be 
found for those peaches, but certainly it is an awful 
indictment of American methods when any article of 
food is permitted to go to waste in such a fashion. 
If this were an isolated case, it would be most re¬ 
markable, but the plain fact is that waste is going on 
constantly, in the most glaring fashion, so far as many 
articles of food are concerned. It is the proof that 
what is wanted is proper marketing of farm products, 
and not an increase of them. It seems quite clear that 
American farmers are now producing all that they can 
sell, and more. Every farmer produces more or less 
every year for which he can find rio market, but it is 
evident that under conditions as indicated he would 
be better off to allow his food products to rot in his 
fields and orchards, rather than to go to the expense 
of harvesting and shipping them, only in the end to be 
obliged also to pay freight and cartage. M. i\ l . 
Maryland. 
Ii. N.-Y.—This is what they call “vain repetition of 
an economic fallacy.” Farmers produce more than they 
can economically dispose of, but town people do not 
all have the food they desire or need. Just as soon as 
farmers fully realize the significance of these two 
truths they will see that it is remedied. 
Fire Danger from Grain Smut. 
We have had our say about the nuisance of “grain 
smuts.” We have seen thrashing machines at work 
near a barn sending out a cloud of smutty dust as 
black as the smoke from a factory chimney. It is not 
only a nuisance to work in any such filth, but the smut 
cuts down the quantity and quality of the grain often 
by 25 per cent, or more. It is a shame to let such a 
performance go on, when it is entirely possible to pre¬ 
vent it by treating the seed grain. Thus far we have 
talked about the loss it occasions. Now comes another 
trouble. Throughout the West there have been many 
explosions in thrashing machines. These explosions led 
to fire, which caused the destruction of much property. 
The Washington Experiment Station has investigated 
this, and finds that these fires result from an explosion 
of smut. This smut works in with the other dust from 
broken grain or straw, and becomes thoroughly com¬ 
bustible. Then electricity is germinated through the 
working of the thrasher and from it the dust and smut 
is set on fire through an explosion. Flames burst out and 
a fire follows. The College finds that the dry smut 
contains about 4 per cent of oil, and when floating 
in dry air it becomes very inflammable, so that it is 
readily ignited by even a weak electric spark. Condi¬ 
tions surrounding a thrasher on the Atlantic slope 
might not be as favorable to these explosions as on the 
upper Pacific, but there is always a danger from smutty 
grain and here is an additional reason for going through 
the simple operation of treating the seed. 
New York State News. 
NEW AGRICULTURAL DIVISIONS.—The Com¬ 
missioner of Agriculture has caused a redistricting of the 
State for the purpose of administering the agricultural 
law in a more efficient manner. There are now six dis¬ 
tricts instead of five. Cayuga, Seneca, Schuyler, and 
Chemung have been taken from the western district 
and added to the Cortland district. The remainder of 
the western district has been divided into two districts. 
Otsego and Delaware have been added to the Albany 
district. Westchester has been added to the New York 
district. 
COLLEGE OF FORESTRY.—The registration just 
completed at the Syracuse College of Forestry shows that 
274 men have entered for the college year. They come 
fivm 55 counties within the State and from 12 States 
outside New York. These men have registered for the 
four and five-year professional courses. 
PROFIT IN STATE FAIR.—It is estimated that 
the State Fair will show a profit this year of $10,000 
to be turned into the State treasury. The State Fair 
Comirrssion will meet October 12 to close up the ac¬ 
counts for the year. 
BIG GRANGE YEAR.—The National Secretary’s 
report on Granges organized during the last fiscal 
year ending September 30 shows that 542 new Granges 
have been organized and 20 reorganized. New York 
is credited with 33. j. w. n. 
