164 AGRICULTURE OF^ MAINE. 



are in use by a good many fruit growers in various parts of the 

 country. It is to be hoped that the orchard tractor will shortly 

 be gotten down to a practical working basis and the price mate- 

 rially reduced. In the rush of spring work, it is often impos- 

 sible to get the orchard land worked over in good time with 

 horses and mules, and, furthermore, teams are necessarily idle 

 a good share of the year on the average fruit farm while ex- 

 penses for feed and care go on just the same. 



In harvesting, winter apples should be allowed to hang upon 

 the trees until well colored and fully developed. This will 

 insure attractive appearance and good keeping quality. Prac- 

 tically all of the decay which occurs in stored apples in the early 

 part of the winter, is due to injuries in handling. The unbroken 

 skin of a sound winter apple is very resistant to rot, but once 

 the skin is broken or punctured, rot spores gain entrance and 

 decay results. Careful handling is particularly essential in box 

 packing as the box is designed for fancy fruit and freedom from 

 punctures or bruises is very necessary. 



Ordinary barrel packing is usually done in the orchard just 

 as the fruit is picked. Occasionally the apples are hauled to 

 some central point or to a packing shed and there packed in 

 barrels but this practice is not common. For box packing, how- 

 ever, a packing shed of some kind is very necessary. Facilities 

 must be at hand for convenience in grading and wrapping and 

 all needed supplies such as box materials, wrapping paper, box 

 liners, labels, etc., must be kept under cover. This means haul- 

 ing the fruit to the packing shed and the wagons used for the 

 purpose should be low down and equipped with bolster springs. 

 Round, drop handle, half bushel picking baskets are very con- 

 venient for use in picking and hauling to the packing shed. 



Careful, systematic work is essential in packing both barrels 

 and boxes. In facing apple barrels the selection of specimens 

 of uniform size so that it will require just so many apples of a 

 certain grade to face a barrel, will facilitate the work and add to 

 the attractiveness of the package. In box packing systematic 

 work is the only kind that will be worth considering. A certain 

 number of apples in each layer and in each row of the layer is 

 absolutely necessary so that the box when completed will con- 

 tain a fixed number, depending upon the size of fruit adapted 

 to any one of the standard packs in common use. This means 



