Not solely as a matter of record but to inspire further progress as well, we record the fact that New York is behind the times in the package used in sending peaches to market. The antiquated Delaware package, a truncated cone holding a third- or a half-bushel, is now the most popular package with growers. This package is a poor carrier, clumsy and easily tipped over, its sides are so thin that the fruit bruises, it is easily opened by thieves and it is unattractive. The reason for its popularity among growers may be guessed when its sole merit is named—peaches need less sorting and are easily packed in this Delaware package. The grand jury of consumers, the country over, has declared for a smaller package for dessert peaches than the Delaware truncated cone and a larger one for culinary peaches. Better in every way, and more and more used by growers in the State are the several sizes of climax baskets. The best of all peach-packages, the Georgia carrier, is just coming into use in New York. It is a crate holding six four-quart till-baskets. These till-baskets are dainty and attractive, fulfilling well the adage "good goods come in small packages." The Georgia carrier is conceded by all to hold the palm of merit for long-distance shipments of dessert peaches. The bushel and half-bushel, round-bottom, farm type, the substantial cover supported by a stout peg between cover and bottom, are being more and more used for shipping the home canning supply. In western New York the bushel basket, if not now, promises soon to be the most popular of all peach-packages.
Our common commercial container, the Delaware basket, is seldom a packed package. The peaches are turned in, assorted somewhat as to size, and the top layer faced with the red cheek up. The climax basket requires more care in packing. The fruit must be arranged in layers and tiers according to the size of peach and basket. Skill and not a little ingenuity are displayed in packing the dainty till-baskets for the Georgia carrier, all depending on the size, uniformity and shape of the peach. The peaches are placed in rows and tiers which regularly alternate and cover much as in a box of packed apples. The peach-harvest in New York usually comes in pleasant weather so that the packing house is generally but a screen from the blaze of the sun, put up in the orchard. The packages, both before and after filling, are, of course, kept clean and dry under permanent cover.
The peach is so handsome and delectable, for that matter so pleasing to all of the senses, that every fruit-grower takes special pride in a finely-finished product going to market and more often than with any other fruit advertises his wares with a label. These show original ownership, where grown, often the variety, always the grade and usually advertise the whole farm and its product. Some growers have their labels registered in the United States Patent Office.
New York peach-growers profit more and more from cold-storage. Peaches can be kept for a few weeks in storage at the freezing point or just above but they soon lose texture and flavor on coming out and cannot compete with fresh peaches which reach the markets every day from some source from May until November. Precooling before shipment, now but coming into practice, is of inestimable value in the heat of the summer. The fruit is quickly packed and then cooled to 40° F. in a central station or by forcing cold air through loaded cars, and then goes under refrigeration to destination. In eastern New York peaches go mostly to New York City by night-boat but refrigerator service is an absolute necessity for western New York and has been very generally installed by the railroads of the region. The precooling station is to be the next step in advance.
DISTRIBUTION OF THE NEW YORK PEACH-CROP
In the past the great problems of peach-growers, as of those who grow other agricultural products, have been cultural in their essential character. Attention to problems of distribution have had to do with the opening up of new regions of production—the expansion of the agricultural domain; with developing means of transportation—railroad lines, steamboat service, canals; and in developing centers of consumption in the cities and towns which have been springing up everywhere in the habitable parts of America. Until recent years, little has been done in studying the commercial disposition of agricultural products. Now, however, studies are being made everywhere of the distributive systems by which products get to market and to determine what share of the consumer's price should go to the producer and what to the distributor. Everywhere the importance of these economic studies is recognized and no producer sees more clearly than the New York peach-grower the need of improvement in handling products to distribute risks, reduce risks, decrease the numbers in the vast armies of middlemen and in every way improve defective distribution. But these questions belong to specialists—economists. We wish here only to furnish a few fundamental data which may be of use to all concerned in the distribution of the peach-crop.
In the economic study of the peach-industry in the State it is essential to know the volume of the product in the State; what proportion of the total different sections produce; how the crop is distributed in consumption; and the movement of the peach-crop from competing peach-states. These data we undertake to furnish for the year 1915, a normal peach-year, taking the figures from the transportation lines handling peaches in New York so far as obtainable. The volume of the product for western New York is shown by figures taken from the New York Central Railroad[258] and the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Peaches were shipped from towns as follows:
| Adams Basin | 26 | Cars |
| Albion | 41 | " |
| Appleton | 108 | " |
| Ashwood | 19 | " |
| Barker | 261 | " |
| Barnard | 72 | " |
| Brice | 242 | " |
| Brighton | 3 | " |
| Brockport | 116 | " |
| Buffalo | 2 | " |
| Burt | 244 | " |
| Carlton | 25 | " |
| Caywood | 16 | " |
| Charlotte | 88 | " |
| Covert | 21 | " |
| E. Williamson | 52 | " |
| Elberta | 24 | " |
| Elm Grove | 1 | " |
| Fancher | 17 | " |
| Fruitland | 48 | " |
| Gasport | 108 | " |
| Geneva | 19 | " |
| Greece | 14 | " |
| Hamlin | 216 | " |
| Hector | 28 | " |
| Hilton | 314 | " |
| Holley | 27 | " |
| Junius | 61 | " |
| Kendall | 70 | " |
| Lewiston | 432 | " |
| Lockport | 119 | " |
| Lodi | 3 | " |
| Lyndonville | 171 | " |
| Medina | 76 | " |
| Middleport | 36 | " |
| Millers | 87 | " |
| Model City | 156 | " |
| Morton | 188 | " |
| North Rose | 2 | " |
| Ontario | 43 | " |
| Pittsford | 2 | " |
| Ransomville | 38 | " |
| Rochester | 214 | " |
| Rushville | 3 | " |
| Sodus | 126 | " |
| Spencerport | 91 | " |
| Trumansburg | 11 | " |
| Union Hill | 1 | " |
| Valois | 5 | " |
| Walker | 168 | " |
| Waterport | 15 | " |
| Waverly | 1 | " |
| Webster | 3 | " |
| Williamson | 371 | " |
| Wilson | 126 | " |
| Wolcott | 15 | " |
| Total | 4568 | Cars |
These figures include plums but the shipment of plums in 1915 was so insignificant as to be negligible and more than offset by shipments of peaches not accounted for by the carriers named.
In addition to the above the American Express Company took out of this territory about 175 cars, mostly in less than car-lot shipments.