101 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Cherries must be jjacked right. Mrs. Rose has charge of our packing 

 and she sees that things are on the square everywhere and right here 

 I would like to remark that the most successful horticulturists are 

 those who have good wives. (Applause.) Mrs. Rose won't let me do 

 anything in connection with the packing because I would talk with the 

 girls and so if anything goes wrong she gets th-e blame for it but I 

 want to tell you that there isn't much goes wrong. That is her busi- 

 ness, and we are right out among the pickers and the packers and see 

 that everything is done as it should be. In our picking, we take little 

 girls and boys and put them with some older gentlemen who keep 

 tbem together and instructs them just how to pick the cherries and in 

 this way we are able to get very satisfactory results. 



There are some that cannot tell a good cherry from a bad nor a small 

 one from a big one, but after our pickers have been under the direction 

 of experienced people for a time, we can see who it is that does good 

 work and if we find careless and inattentive ones, we let them go. 



These cherries are picked in baskets, with a metal strip around the 

 bottom which keeps them from coming apart. AVhen the cherries are 

 brought into the packing house they are emptied on the table before 

 these girls who are sitting on benches. We try to make it as comfort- 

 able for our girls as we can. The boxes are 9^/^ in. wide by 20 in. long. 

 The stems are all packed up until you get to the bottom. Then press 

 them down carefully and nail the cover on. 



The western people use tight boxes, we are discarding the western 

 tight box and are using the ventilated boxes. It admits the air and the 

 cherries are shown off to better advantage. Our cherries layer about 

 ten side by side, and six quarts in a box. Our cherries were at St. 

 Louis and Buffalo in competition against the western fellows and we 

 won out with our Schmidt's Biggareau. 



We put our yellow cherries in boxes but not many of them, as they 

 are not a fancy fruit. 



We are very particular about this packing. After rains the cherries 

 are apt to get little water cracks in them. You might not notice them at 

 all unless you looked carefully, these should not go into the boxes at 

 all. You may say that it is a very small crack and will do no damage 

 but what you say and what will happen are two different things. Don't 

 put those cherries in. You will fare better in the end. Of course all 

 this care makes slow work, and we pay the same price for this that we 

 do if they work faster. We have orders for checked cherries and can 

 sell them at a good pri^^e. Two or three checked cherries in a box may 

 not be noticed but it will amount to more than you think for, when it 

 comes to your reputation as a first class fruit dealer. IMore than once 

 I have taken a whole box of cheiTies and put them in the dump be- 

 cause I knew it was unsafe to send them out on account of the mold 

 that will form on a cracked cherry. 



Some years ago I had a great deal of trouble in getting cherries to 

 any market in good order but after I took to packing them in ventilated 

 boxes and thoroughly spraying the orchard. I did not have so much 

 difficulty. I have sprayed the brown rot out of my cherries. I use the 

 Bordeau mixture to do it with but you must get at it early in the spring. 



Chicago takes the most of our best cherries and here we outsold 

 California side by side 25 cents on a box. A great many of our cherries 



