Page 6 



BETTER FRUIT 



Conveyors and the Fruit Industry 



By James C. Hunter, Conveyor Engineer D. E. Fryer & Company, Seattle, Washingtj 



TO EXPEDITE the handling of 

 fruit crops and other perishable 

 commodities is one of the urgent needs 

 of the day. Economics is the foundation 

 stone on which the science of business 

 is built. It underlies all business, just 

 as mathematics underlies all branches 

 of engineering and its general princi- 

 ples should be thoroughly understood 

 when working out the problems con- 

 fronting the equipment engineer of any 



expensive method of transportation is 

 still in use in very many places. 



Gravity rolling belts and inclined con- 

 veyors, spiral chutes and straight lift 

 elevators are well known equipment 

 used in the handling of the large apple 

 crops in the United States. The stand- 

 ard gravity conveyor systems have 

 proved to be particularly well suited to 

 the requirements of apple and fruit 

 packers, and are now doing double time 

 service in man}' apple and fruit 

 packing warehouses in all parts 

 of the country. In addition to 

 the speeding up of the output, 

 and at the same time reducing 

 labor to the minimum, these 

 conveyors perform all the hard 

 work of transporting the pro- 

 ducts. 



industry. Tile conditions in the handling 

 of fruit are so exacting that mechanical 

 equipment should be installed where it 

 can save time and labor and avoid the 

 large claims for damages arising from 

 the rough man-handling of the fruit 

 packer. 



A rapid turnover of the fruit pack is 

 a paramount demand, and when this is 

 accomplished you are giving the or- 

 chardist, shipper and consignee service, 

 and you are also reducing your excessive 

 costs to a minimum. In the fruit pack- 

 ing industry, mechanical sorting ma- 

 chines have most entirely replaced the 

 old hand method, but the old slow and 



'T'O ILLUSTRATE the 

 A method of an up-to-date 

 packing plant, cold storage, or 

 warehouse, see illustration No. 

 1 . This is a typical layout of a 

 conveying system as applied to 

 apple packing and warehouse 

 requirements. These conveyors 

 are so constructed that they will 

 handle open baskets or bo"xes of any 

 kind of fruit. This illustration shows 

 by the arrow marks a box arriving at 

 the packing plant and being placed on 

 receiving lines of portable sections of 

 gravity conveyors to inclined elevator 

 and from there being rapidly transport- 

 ed to the packing room. After the pack- 

 ing process is completed, the filled cases 

 are allowed to proceed on gravity con- 

 veyors leading to a spiral chute or a re- 

 verse operating inclined elevator, and 

 by this means taken to one of the lower 

 floors from which they are transported 

 by gravity lines or horizontal belt con- 

 veyors directly to the piling space or to 



May, a >. 'i 



cars for shipment. 



Experience has (shown that whetre 

 fruit is received on a line of gravity and 

 conveyed to the point allotted, one re- 

 ceiving door will do the work of some 

 four or five doors where the boxes are 

 merely placed in the opening and 

 trucked in. The use of gravity roller 

 conveyors does away with unnecessary 

 delay in receiving fruit, and allows the 

 orchardist to make more trips daily to 

 the warehouse, which naturally pleases 

 him, because there is nothing more an- 

 noying than to have to wait in line for 

 hours before being able to discharge 



Play 

 Safe 



y-out of a Standard Conveying System as Applied to Apple Packing and W; 

 Requirements. 



"Black Leaf 

 40" 



(Nicotine Sulphate) 



is safe and effective for 

 APPLE aphis and red bug 

 PEAR psylla 

 GRAPE Leaf-hopper "thrips" 

 and other soft-bodied, sucking 

 insects on fruits, vegetables and 

 ornamentals. 



"Black Leaf 40" does not 

 injure Fruit or Foliage 



"Black Leaf 40" may be com- 

 bined with Lime-Sulphur, Bor- 

 deaux, Lead-Arsenate, soap 

 and other spray materials, 

 thereby saving the expense of 

 a separate application. 



For further information as to 

 formulas, nearest dealer, etc., 

 address 



Tobacco By-Products 



and Chemical 



Corporation 



(Incorporated) 

 LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY 



; ADVERTISERS MENTION BETTER FRUIT 



