The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1912-11-07
Good Packages.

Attractiveness Counts for Much in Making
Sales.
1t is one thing to grow choice fruits
and vegetables, and quite another thing
to market them SO they will bring the
highest possible price in selling COM
petition with other foods offered for
sale. Many grow good things for the
market and yet do not realize more than
one-half as much cash from the crops as
they would by carefully grading and
marketing in attractive packages. At
tractive packages sell the goods" is
common saying among wholesale COM
mission men.
The reason for this is that the fruits
bear direct evidence of careful and clean
handling. The prospective buyer knows,
or has every reason to believe, that if
pains were taken in careful, neat and
clean packing, the goods must also be
clean and of superior quality. Nothing
will detract from the selling qualities of
fruits ard vegetables so much as gen.
eral air of carelessness and uncleanliness
in packages. The prospective buyer
thinks, and has many reasons to believe,
that if the goods were handled careless
ly and carried in old and soiled pack
ages, they are inferior in quality and
perhaps unfit for human consumption.
Much good stuff in this manner is drug
on the market and sells at a discount,
the producer scarcely realizing anything
in growing and marketing it. The COM
mission man is often blamed for unsatis-
factory returns from the goods when the
shipper, only, is really to blame through
packing the goods unattractively in old
packages.
Barrels, boxes, baskets, crates and
other modern packages are now made
and sold by box and basket factories at
very low price when purchased in large
lots. The new, clean packages are so
cheap that it never pays to use old ones.
1t is the consumer, and not you, In the
end, who pays the extra price for the
new package. 1t is your business to
furnish the customer what he wants, if
he is more than willing TO pay for it,
with profit to you for purchasing it
for him in advance. From this point OF
view you become not only a producer
and seller of eatables for the upper
classes who can afford to pay good
y
purchasing and selling of fancy pack
ages. Every $40 you invest in good
packages will bring back within. few
weeks $50 to $50, or even $50. A neigh
Dor uses parchment paper and cartons
for packing her butter, which is nodded
into brick prints. The parchment paper
and cardboard carton for one pound print
of butter costs but about l cent, pur-
chased in large lots, and she receives
cents more per pound for her butter in
town over those who do not pack their
butter in this way. She purchases S.
worth of butter packing material and
and sells this material, with her butter,
to town consumers for $25. This is a
handsome profit to make on merchandise,
and it is an advantage to be able to turn
YOUR money over in profit three or four
times each year. Such merchandising
is legitimate part of farming, or gar
dening, and those who make money and
are optimistic in their work.
All of the up-to-date farms have at
:tractive, fancy and very sanitary and
convenient packages for eggs to be sold
to hotels, railroads and private custom
ers. Whether they sell dozen, two
dozen OR dozen dozen to one party at
one time, the eggs are packed and sealed
in the neatest kind of an attractive pack
age, and the customers pays for the ex-
ira packing with good profit to the pro-
Queer. All creameries pack their butter
for shipment in approved fancy pack
ages to meet competition with superior
butter on the open market.
In handling fruits and vegetables for
market, grading for uniform size and
quality is of prime Importance. The
tomatoes, apples, pears, or whatever
they may be, should all be of the same
kind and size, and all good. 1t does not
pay to handle and ship poor stuff. In
placing in the basket or box, the top
rows should be straight and uniform.
Three tomatoes in a row, with four rows
to the basket, make dozen tomatoes to
the basket. Four such baskets are
placed in a crate. These four dozen of
choice tomatoes in the attractive pack
age will sell for fully twice as much as
the same number loose in large box or
basket. There is good profit in handling
them in this way.
At the fairs this fall several up-to-date
growers are packing a dozen choice
apples in individual cartons. The paste
board carton, containing the dozen choice
apples, is divided into twelve squares or
Compartments, three wide by four long,
similar to the divisions in an egg case.
single apple, wrapped in tissue paper. is
placed in each division. The apples are
perfect specimens of their kind, one
kind, and uniform in size and coloring.
With the carton filled, the cover open,
and the tissue paper pushed back to show
the shining cheek of each apple, the ap-
pea1ance is perfection for attractive,
fancy packing. The carton bears the
growers name, which advertises his
product. A dozen choice apples, packed
in a neat carton, will sell for from so
cents to 81, twice as much as the same
apples in barrels or boxes. while the ex,
ira cost of packing in this manner will
not exceed 10 cents per dozen, and in
most cases not more than 5 cents per
dozen. Such apples are sold to select
city trade, and the dozen carton pack
ages of apples is much in demand by
choice customers, who are willing to pay
the price if the quality is there.
Many are now selling apples and other