198 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



abundance, if it is not properly handled from the tree to the consumer,, 

 it loses money for the producer. , 



I cannot refrain from diverging from the subject one moment 

 right here to say that the fruit-grower who expects to reduce the 

 handling of his fruit to a minimum cost, which is necessary to success 

 in these days of sharp competition, must consider the cost of gather- 

 ing and handling when he plants his orchard. Any one who has ever 

 gathered peaches knows that he can gather a solid block of proper 

 size of one variety at one half the cost that he can a conglomerated 

 mixture of six to ten varieties in the same block. 



Again, how exasperating and how expensive it is if we are gather- 

 ing, say, Blberta peaches and finish up a block in the middle of the 

 forenoon or the middle of the afternoon, and have to pull and move 

 forty or fifty pickers and packers and all appliances for handling the 

 fruit to another block of Elbertas in another part of the field one-half 

 or perhaps a mile and a half distant. 



A block of peach trees should not consist of more than ten acres 

 of land or 40 rods square, and should have a driveway on one ormoie 

 sides, according to the position it occupies to the public highway or 

 railway station. The driveways need not be more than 20 or 25 feet 

 wide. If I were planting 1,000 acres of peach trees of one or many 

 varieties, I would divide them into lO-acre blocks ; or if I were plant- 

 ing only ten acres of one or more varieties, I would not plant more 

 than four varieties in an orchard of only ten acres ; I would plant them 

 in one block. If I wished to have two varieties I would plant one half 

 the block to each variety. If four varieties would corner them in the 

 center of the block, because in the center of a 10 acre block is where 

 we want to do our packing. 



The laying ont of an apple orchard may be diJBFerent, as the gather- 

 ing and packing of apples is different from that of peaches. The apple 

 orchard may be planted in rows the entire length of the field or orchard 

 plat, it matters not how long, if each row contains but one variety of 

 apples. 



Handling a crop of peaches requires no small amount of fore- 

 thought and preparation before the peaches are ripe, as any delay means 

 loss when they are ripe. In view of this fact we should have our box 

 material on hand early, and a goodly number of each kind of package 

 that we expect to use during the season made up. 



I will not undertake to go into detail of the merits of the differ- 

 ent kinds of packages in use, but will say that I prefer three kinds 

 and but three kinds of packages for the general market ; the six 

 basket carrier, the '"California" No. 20 box and the third bushel box. 



