MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 341 



and it is hard to get pickers to understand this. They are too apt 

 when settled down into the fruit fields to act. talk and behave as if 

 they were on a picnic excursion, and even the older pickers are imbued 

 with this spirit. We have found that well-raised ladies and girls make 

 the best hands, especially those upon whom the burden of the support 

 of the family has entirely or partially fallen. While everyone thinks 

 he knows how to pick fruit there is scarcely more than one in twenty- 

 five who can pick profitably to himself or to his employers. We have 

 been compelled to discharge even a large percentage of applicants 

 who have tried it. This, of course, gives the fruitgrower the reputa- 

 tion, even among the pickers who are retained, for crankiness, and he 

 must treat them with firmness and frankness and make the pay good, 

 showing enough discrimination in favor of good picking to create a 

 rivalry that will secure good work. Berries must be picked clean and 

 without mashing, and the work done rapidly and loud talking or visit- 

 ing reduced to the minimum. We rarely find it profitable to employ 

 children in the work. Berry picking is real hard work; too hard for 

 <}hildren. Vitality and ability to stand the heat are among the more 

 important requisites. It is possible after being in the work and be- 

 coming well acquainted with the heads of families who are pickers to 

 have them bring along this or that promising girl or boy who has good 

 home habits and let them pick next to and under the direct care of 

 the parent, developing them in this way. The principal reason why 

 children are not profitable pickers is because they look at the work 

 from a picnic standpoint altogether, and when the picnic idea works 

 off and they have eaten all they want the thing begins to look like 

 work pure and simple, so they become of no account and must be dis- 

 missed. — Live Stock Indicator. 



Pickings, Packing and Marketing Fruit. 



My purpose has been to gather and arrange for the South Missouri 

 Horticultural Association, and all the fruit-growers of Howell county, 

 the fullest and the best obtainable tnformation on my subject, such as 

 may be a practical guide to the inexperienced with some new and use- 

 ful suggestions to all. With this aim, I sought, and have been kindly 

 accorded, the assistance of Ool. J. C. Evans, President; Hon. L. A. 

 Goodman, Secretary, and Hon. A. ISTelson, Treasurer Missouri State 

 Horticultural Society; Hon. George T. Powell, of New York, noted as 

 a lecturer on horticulture; Geo. W. Barnett, of Chicago, President of 

 the National League of Commission Merchants, and Col. Louis Erb, 



