54 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



from ripening. Now last year I was bothered for want of bar- 

 rels. I shipped some i,6oo barrels to Boston and had them 

 stored, then I stored the balance of mine at home, filled my house 

 with bins. The inside of the house is about 29 x 39 feet. It 

 will hold about a thousand barrels. I had this solid, three bins 

 high, and with only one walk, narrow walk, through the house, 

 and those apples were in bins and they kept just as sound, just 

 as plump as when they went in. 



Now I find in my experience that the best way I can handle 

 my apples is when they get to a certain stage of ripeness to pick 

 them just as quick as I possibly can get them off the tree. Now 

 if there are no storms the first week or ten days after the fruit 

 is ripe enough to pick it won't drop of itself much of any. After 

 that, if there is any wind, it will begin gradually to drop and as 

 you continue picking for two or three weeks or a month you 

 sometimes will find half of your crop has dropped from your 

 trees. Now an apple that has dropped is not worth over half 

 price in the market what it would have been if it had been picked 

 and properly handled. That none of you will dispute. Now if 1 

 can hasten the time of picking a week by putting on all my help 

 but just what I need to run my apples over and barrel the Ais 

 that I have to send in, if I can put all the rest of the help on the 

 picking, why I can hurry up my work very much indeed. Now 

 this year I had about 800 barrels of apples. Well, I got in help 

 enough and had it all cleaned up in three days. It will more 

 than pay the extra that you will have to give for your help. I 

 pay them a little extra. I told them if they would come and stay 

 by me I would give them so much, if they didn't I wouldn't give 

 them but so much — and they all stayed. Every barrel that I can 

 save from dropping I save a dollar on. That I guess any one 

 that has handled good fruit won't dispute ; from a picked apple 

 to a dropped apple there is at least a dollar's difference in the 

 price. So that it hastens the time of picking and saves loss from 

 dropping. Then it gives you a chance to hold this poorer or 

 cheaper grade of fruit until they are cleaned up in the market 

 and you can get instead of eight cents a bushel that I got. 25 cents 

 a barrel for apples sent in the fall, $t,8o in the winter — you don't 

 always do that — last year my dropped apples I got about $1.35 

 when in the fall thev wouldn't have been worth, — well, vou 



