STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 87 



as much as the mixed berries. The Httle ones only fill in be- 

 tween the big ones. This is especially true of the Brandywine. 

 It has a large hull. Sorting is a commercial proposition. It is 

 just the same as with your apples. You know they will bring 

 a great deal more than the apples off the same tree if they 

 were all mixed together. 



Question : What is the cost of picking and grading? 



Mr. Putnam : Well, it depends altogether on who does it. I 

 couldn't say just how quickly I can grade strawberries — it 

 depends on how they are running — but I can run over a crate 

 of berries in ten minutes and grade them. 



Question : You don't face them up ? 



Mr. Putnam : All faced as they go ; but we don't handle the 

 berry. We have a packing table which stands about the height 

 of our elbows. The berries are brought in on trays, carrying 

 eight boxes. The tray is a little board with a leg in each corner, 

 slats nailed around the edges and a half of a barrel stave for a 

 handle. They are set on the table as they bring them in. Take 

 one of those boxes, with an empty box in front of you, and 

 pour them out into the other box, and pick out the poor ones 

 as you run them over. If you could have pickers that you could 

 trust, you could have them sort. Now remember, this is wholly 

 for my market. I have a near-by market. Those berries are 

 all delivered within two hours from the time they are picked 

 from the vines, and that is a different proposition from a ship- 

 ment to Boston or Portland or somewhere else. Of course, 

 then, by handling it may hurt the berries about standing up. If 

 you can trust your pickers to grade them as they pick them, so 

 much the better. 



Question : What does this facing consist of ? Is it anything 

 more than leveling off? 



Mr. Putnam : No, sir. Our berries have sold in the same 

 market for sixteen years. A man offered me last year sixteen 

 cents a quart for all my berries straight, first and second. And 

 those people know my berries. If I had faced them in the 

 first place they wouldn't be offering me sixteen cents a box for 

 everything. 



Some years ago I planted two plots of strawberries and kept 

 exact account of the cost of each from the time of planting 

 until cultivation ceased. This did not take into account the cost 



