No. 6. E'EPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 443 



farm among some of the most inteiestiug and valuable lessons I 

 have learned was the importance of careful handling of the fruit. 

 Fruit that in any way becomes injured in handling will have poor 

 holding qualities. In testing this by the inoculation of fruit with 

 the germs of moulds, we had a very striking experience. My son 

 took some of the finest fruit I had and by simply touching it with a 

 needle which had been previously inoculated and then laying it away, 

 although with no visible injury whatever, it very soon developed 

 decay. Simply with the touch of a needle point the apples may be- 

 come inoculated with the fungus germ. Now the lesson of that 

 work is this, that in handling our fruit, we should .avoid every pos- 

 sible occasion in any way of injuring the skin, for when we break 

 the skin, we at once expose the fruit to some germ that is ever 

 present in our packing house, later to spring into activity. So long 

 as we can keep the skin intact, there is little danger of decay. The 

 packing should be done with great care. The emptying of fruit into 

 packages from the picking jiacket should be carefully done. We 

 always use baskets with swing handles for picking and never a bag, 

 as has been recommended. So many find it, as they say, more con- 

 venient to sling the bag over their shoulder. By the consequent 

 movement of the fruit in the bag, the pickers will puncture the 

 apples with the stems, and this is equally true in picking with a 

 basket if they are careless in emptying. We, as fruit growers, have 

 hardly understood the first points of success in the holding of fruit, 

 and if we are going to run the risk of placing it in storage it is very 

 important to us and to the consumers who are to buy the fruity that 

 it be handled carefully and the more careful and promptly the 

 fruit can be packed and stored after it has been picked, the greater 

 will be the success in holding. Wrapping the fruit is a great protec- 

 tion against germ infection. The fruit keeps better in every way 

 if it is wrapped. All fruit that is used for fancy, hotel or club 

 trade is best wrapped and packed in boxes rather than barrels. The 

 question is properly asked, whether fruit growers should not have 

 the storage of fruit on their oAvn farms. The cost in the city stor- 

 age houses is from forty to fifty cents a barrel for the season, and 

 from fifteen to twent}^ cents a box, which of course makes a some- 

 what high cost on a large quantity of fruit, and the subject fre- 

 quently comes up, why don't the fruit grower have his own storage? 

 I doubt if it is practicable for him to store upon his farm. He 

 cannot use a mechanical system of cooling. There is a system of 

 cooling with pipes that I think will work out. This is known as the 

 Gravity Brine system, and some individuals have put up very suc- 

 cessful small storage buildings. 



I think it will be possible for large growers to use the Gravity 

 Brine plan fruit rooms and have a storag'e on their own farms. I 

 think the better plan would be for a community to establish fruit 

 storage and handling facilities. For instance, take a community 

 like this, here is a large territory that is well adapted for very fine 

 fruit. We have found some excellent fruit on your tables and the 

 Committee has only gone partly through with it. The evidence is 

 right here that you can grow apples of the very finest quality. Now 

 the thing for you to do right here in this section, would be for you 



