386 MISSOURI STATE HORTICTLTURAL SOCIETY. 



MARKETING. 



PICKING AND SORTING APPLES. 



Deacon L. W. Weeks, of Marlborough, gives his method of harvest- 

 ing winter apples. Says the Maine Farvner: 



" He selects enough large sized barrels to fill a spring wagon; 

 takes them to the orchard for filling; uses handle bnskets to pick in, 

 that are small enough to turn over inside the barrels. Have the pick- 

 ers fill their small baskets, which can be carefully emptied into the 

 barrels without bruising the fruit. Even eggs can be poured from a 

 basket if one knows how to do it. The barrels are not filled quite fall, 

 as they are handled easier and no apples are spilled by lifting the bar- 

 rels into the wagon, or by unloading them again. At the barn or cel- 

 lar, the barrels are taken from the wagon by two men, one on each 

 side, and are carefully emptied upon the ground or floor, for sorting 

 and barrelling for market. 



By this method the apples can be picked and placed in the barn 

 or cellar ready for sorting, very rapidly and without bruising, and the 

 pickers have no responsibility about selection, as the apples are picked 

 clean from the tree. In harvesting fall apples that are to be sold im- 

 mpdiately, if the quality is good, the picking and sorting are done at 

 one operation, all inferior fruit being left on the tree, or dropped upon 

 the ground. 



Mr. Weeks objects to pouring apples upon the ground under the 

 tree, to be sorted, as the grass is in the way of picking, and when car- 

 ried direct from the orchard to the barn or cellar, the sorting and bar- 

 relling can go on during rainy weather, or befoie the dew would be off 

 in the morning. He finds that it pays, in the long run, to sort well, 

 putting in no inferior specimens. A good reputation here as elsewhere 

 is worth attaining and keeping. 



A PROFITABLE GARDEN. 



Heny Pruetzman. one of the early settlers near Jamestown, Da- 

 kota, and a successful wheat grower on one hundred and sixty acres, 

 gays his experience with vegetables and small fruits, on a small inclos- 

 ure of twenty rods, convinces him that if he had taken up only five 

 acres and engaged in market gardening, he could have realized more 



