New YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 261 
perhaps, with this variety because it is not a good variety for 
storing anyway and goes soon into consumption. But cold 
storage men are agreed that, although this practice may put the 
fruit in better condition for immediate use, it injures its keeping 
quality. 
Some varieties, as McIntosh, ripen very unevenly. If all the 
fruit is picked from a tree of such a variety at one picking, there 
results a mixed lot of differing degrees of ripeness, and the season 
of the ripest fruits determines the season of the whole lot. The 
harvesting of such varieties should be divided between two or 
more pickings. In parts of the west, it has become an established 
practice to pick some varieties of apples in the same way that 
peaches and oranges are picked, going over the trees a number 
of times and taking each time only those fruits that have reached 
the required degree of ripeness. As a result the different fruits 
in any such lot are very uniform in keeping quality and the per- 
centage of No. 1 fruit is greatly increased. The small packages 
used by Oregon fruit-growers for their apples and the high prices 
obtained for the fruit make the practice profitable there. 
Some growers have, in the last few years, adopted the practice 
of picking early apples, especially Oldenburg, in this way, and 
the practice is gaining. In this case the earliness of the season 
gives time for several pickings; but when the main crop of 
fruit comes on it must be harvested all at once in order to get 
through picking in time. Although the desirability of making 
two or more pickings is commonly admitted it does not seem to 
be generally practicable under present conditions and methods 
of apple orcharding in New York State. The practice is for the 
grower of early or fancy fruit or of fruit for local markets rather 
than for the growers of the ordinary commercial varieties of 
winter apples. Yet there is a feeling, especially among dealers, 
that this is a coming practice. 
It is a matter of common observation that specimens that are 
very large for the variety do not keep so well as those of medium 
size and firmer texture. This is remarked by several cold storage 
men. Such fruit may be produced on young trees or on mature 
trees making excessive growth or carrying a light crop. 
