23 6 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



sorts will crack and of those that make a very compact bunch of 

 berries will force each other off the peduncle. They are more apt 

 to do this when inside a sack where there is less evaporation and they 

 also start to rot, while outside they probably get dry. 



Among the Blacks, Herbert and Barry are my favorites. lona 

 seems to me to be the finest table grape of all but it is not easy to 

 produce fine bunches of it. Agawam Delaware, Brighton and Amber 

 Queen are fin*"" red sorts, Green Mountain is perhaps the finest of my 

 white sorts. Champion, Ives and Elvira have been dug up because no 

 one would eat them and Diana might just as well go too being not 

 worth much. 



(Paper read before the annual meeting of the Iowa State Hort- 

 icultural society, Dec. 1913.) 



PICKING AND PACKING GRAPES. 

 J. R. Duncan. 



The grape harvest will soon be at hand and it should find the 

 grower with everything in readiness to handle the crop quickly and 

 carefully. Grapes, unlike other fruits, must be allowed to ripen upon 

 the vines in order to get the true flavor that only sun, water and soil 

 can give. So many growers commence to pick the grapes as soon as 

 they are colored. The first grapes, even if colored, will sell for a 

 good price because the consumer is grape hungry. It would be better 

 to let him wait a few days and send fruit that not only was well col- 

 ored but was well flavored as well. This can only be determined by 

 the grower himeslf. They should not, however, be allowed to become 

 so ripe as to not stand up in shipment. Where a grower has a large 

 commercial vineyard, his method of handling his crop would be mucn 

 different from the man who had only a small acreage. In the large 

 commercial vineyards of Michigan the vines are planted in rows from 

 eight to ten feet apart. These rows are cut at right angles with roads 

 across the vineyards about ten or fifteen rods apart. The grower 

 either supplies himself with a supply of stiff splint baskets that will 

 not give, thuo mashing the grapes, or a lot of fiat trays in which ihe 

 bunches are placed as cut from the vines. Crews of from ii^-e to eight 

 persons work under one foreman in gathering the crop. The grapes 

 are removed from the vines with a sharp knife and carefully placed 

 in the hnskets or trays. These trays are gathered up and hauled on 

 "wagons, with flat bottomed rack, to the packing shed. Springs are 

 used on the wagon tlius minimizing the liability of bruising the fruit. 

 On arriving at the packing house the grapes are unloaded into one 

 end of the house. Long tables are found in the houses behind which 

 are girls who do most of the packing of the fruit. Only full bunches 

 are packed in the baskets to be shipped out. Usually 

 the ragged and small bunches are sold to the grape juice factorie.=!. 



In packing the bunches are laid so that every portion of the 

 basket is filled. The grapes are packed so that they stand above the 



